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\ 7. 















Interna- 
tional Episode 

BY HENRY JAMES, JR., ILLUS- 
TRATED FROM DRAWINGS 
BY HARRY W. McVICKAR 



HARPER & BROTHERS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 
M— C — M— V— I 


M 


V 



fUw Riwiiwd I 
StP 10 1906 j 
ToovrtfM Entry 

OlLA^ cc XXo. Na 



Copyright, 1878, 1892, by Harper & Brothers. 


Copyright, 1906, by Henry James. 


All rights reserx>ed. 



AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 


Frontispiece 

Tugboats . • • . 

A Bit of tlie Battery '/ 

New York Docks .-r 
Percy Iteaninont . 

Letter of lutroduclkM'i . 

Lessons in American. 

Types They Met Down-lown . 

Corner of Greenwich Street . 

Weather-vane of Church steeple . 

Mr. Westgate 

View from Westgate’s Ofhco . 

Fall River Steamboat-landing 
Impressions . . . • • 

Bookishness of Boston . 

On the Newport Boat 
Waiters at the Ocean House . 

M rs. Westgate . . . ■ 

A Guest of Mrs. Westgate 

The Web I.ambeth is Warned Against 

English Hats . . • • • 

1'he American Flag 

The Pretty Sister of Mrs. Westgate 

Money 

Newport Rocks . • • • 

A Bit of Newport Farm land 
Mrs. Westgate's Trap . 

Thames Street . • • • 

Two Ih-etty Girls . . • • 

Marquis and Duke’s Crown 


PAGE 
. 1 
. 3 

. 5 

. 8 
. 11 
. 13 

. 15 

. 18 
. 20 
- 21 
. 22 
. 25 

. 28 
. 30 

. 31 

. 33 

31 , 35 
37 , 38 
. 41 

. 44 

. 46 

. 48 

. 51 

. 55 

. 58 

. 62 
. 66 
. 6 !) 
. 71 

. 73 


1 


PAGE 

Decoration ... 78 

Heading. Part II 83 

Duke of Green Erin 86 

A Cabby 88 

Willie Woodley 93 

Decoration . . . , . .... 95 

The Duchess’s Invitation 100 

Bessie Alden ......... 103 

In Hyde Park 105 

The Duke . 109 

Parliament Buildings . . 113 

The Gate 118 

Duchess of Siififolk and Lord Chamberlain . , . 121 

Decoration - . , . . 125 

Not Such a Fool as He Looks 129 

Decorations 133, 139, 145 

The Duchess’s Cards 149 

“ Mrs. Westgate glanced at the clock ” ..... 1.50 

Bessie is Fond of Travelling 151 

The Duchess . . . 153 

.Journal 155 

The Branches 157 

Writing 159 

Decoration 161 

Finis . - . ^ . , , , , . 162 


c 



ft 



. 



part 3 



. j 




ouE years 
ago — in. 
1874 — two young 
Eiiglislimen had oc- 
casion to go to the 
United States. They 
crossed the ocean at 
midsummer, and, ar- 
riving in !New York on the first day 
of August, were much struck with 
the fervid temperature of tliat city. 
Disembarking upon the wliarf, they 
climbed into one of those huge high- 
hung coaches which convey passen- 
gers to the hotels, and, with a great 
deal of bouncing and bumping, took 
their course through Broadway. The 
midsummer aspect of New 
York is not, perhaps, the 
most favorable one ; still, it 
is not without its pictu- 
resque and even brilliant 
side. Nothing could well 
resemble less a typical Eng- 
lish street than the intermi- 
nable avenue, rich in incon- 
gruities, through which our 
two travellers advanced — 


looking out on each side of them at the 
comfortable animation of the sidewalks, 
the high-colored, heterogeneous archi- 
tecture, the huge, white marble facades 
glittering in the strong, crude light, and 
bedizened with gilded lettering, the mul- 
tifarious awnings, banners, and streamers, 
the extraordinary number of omnibuses, 
horse-cars, and other democratic vehicles, 
the venders of cooling fluids, the wdiite 
trousers and big straw-hats of the police- 
men, the tripping gait of the modish young 
persons on the pavement, the general 
brightness, newness, juvenility, both of 
people and things. The young men had 
exchanged few observations ; but in cross- 
ing Union Square, in front of the monu- 
ment to Washington — in the very shadow, 
indeed, projected by the image of the 
pater patrice — one of them remarked to 
the other, “It seems a rum-looking place.’’ 

“Ah, very odd, very odd,” said the 
other, who was the clever man of the 
two. 

“ Pity it’s so beastly hot,” resumed the 
flrst speaker, after a pause. 

“You know we are in a low latitude,” 
said his friend. 

“ I dare say,” remarked the other. 



“ I wonder,” said the second 

speaker, presently, “if they can 

— give one a bath ?” 

“ I dare say not,” rejoined the 
~ other. 

“ Oh, I say !” cried his com- 
rade. 

This animated discussion was checked 
by their arrival at the hotel, which had 
been recommended to them by an Amer- 
ican gentleman whose acquaintance they 
made — with whom, indeed, they became 
very intimate — on the steamer, and who 
had proposed to accompany them to the 
inn and introduce them, in a friendly 
way, to the proprietor. This plan, how- 
ever, had been defeated by their friend’s 
finding that his “partner” was await- 
ing him on the wharf, and that his 
commercial associate desired him in- 
stantly to come and give his attention 
to certain telegrams received from 
St. Louis. But the two English- 
men, with nothing but their na- 


tional prestige and personal graces to 
recommend them, were very well re- 
ceived at the hotel, which had an air of 
capacious hospitality. They found that 
a bath was not unattainable, and were in- 
deed struck with the facilities for pro- 
longed and reiterated immersion with 
which their apartment was supplied. Af- 
ter bathing a good deal — more, indeed, 
than they had ever done before on a sin- 
gle occasion — they made their way into 
the dining-room of the hotel, which was 
a spacious restaurant, with a fountain in 
the middle, a great many tall plants in 
ornamental tubs, and an array of French 
waiters. The first dinner on land after a 
sea-voyage is, under any circumstances, a 
delightful occasion, and there was some- 
thing particularly agreeable in the circum- 
stances in which our young Englishmen 
found themselves. They were extremely 
good-natured young men ; they were more 
observant than they appeared ; in a soi’t 
of inarticulate, accidentally dissimulative 
fashion, they were highly appreciative. 
This was, perhaps, especially the case with 
the elder, who was also, as I have said, 
the man of talent. They sat down at a 
little table, which was a very different 


affair from the great clattering seesaw in 
the saloon of the steamer. The wide 
doors and windows of the restaurant stood 
open, beneath large awnings, to a wide 
pavement, where there were other plants 
in tubs and rows of spreading trees, and 
beyond which there was a large, shady 
square, without any palings, and with mar- 
ble-paved walks. And above the vivid 
verdure rose other faQades of white mar- 
ble and of pale chocolate-colored stone, 
squaring themselves against the deep blue 
sky. Here, outside, in the light and the 
shade and the heat, there was a great 
tinkling of the bells of innumerable street- 
cars, and a constant strolling and shuffling 
and rustling of many pedestrians, a large 
proportion of whom were young women 
in Pompadour-looking dresses. Within, 
the place was cool and vaguely lighted, 
with the plash of water, the odor of 
flowers, and the flitting of French wait- 
ers, as I have said, upon soundless car- 
pets. 

It’s rather ^ike Paris, you know,” said 
the younger of our two travellers. 

“It’s like Paris— only more so,” his 
companion rejoined. 

“I suppose it’s the French waiters,” 

7 






said the first speaker. “ Why don’t they 
have French waiters in London?” 

‘‘Fancy a French waiter at a club,” said 
his friend. 

The young Englishman stared a little, 
as if he could not fancy it. “In Paris 
I’m very apt to dine at a place where 
there’s an English waiter. Don’t you 
know what’s - his - name’s, close to the 
thingumbob? They always set an Eng- 
lish waiter at me. I suppose they think 
I can’t speak French.” 

“Well, you can’t.” And the elder of 
the young Englishmen unfolded his 
napkin. 

His companion took no notice what- - 
ever of this declaration. “I say,” he 
resumed, in a moment, “I suppose we 
must learn to speak American. I 
suppose we must take les- 


“ What the deuce is he saying ?” asked 
his comrade, appealing from the French 
waiter. 

“ He is recommending some soft-shell 
crabs,” said the clever man. 

And so, in desultory observation of the 
idiosyncrasies of the new society in which 
they found themselves, the young English- 
men proceeded to dine — going in largely, 
as the phrase is, for cooling draughts and 
dishes, of which their attendant offered 
them a very long list. After dinner they 
went out and slowly walked about the 
neighboring streets. The early dusk of 
waning summer was coming on, but the 
heat was still very great. The pavements 
were hot even to the stout boot soles of the 
British travellers, and the trees along the 
curb-stone emitted strange exotic odors. 
The young men wandered through the ad- 
joining square — that queer place without 
palings, and with marble walks arranged 
in black and white lozenges. There were 
a great many benches, crowded with shab- 
by-looking people, and the travellers re- 
marked, very justly, that it was not much 
like Belgrave Square. On one side was 
an enormous hotel, lifting up into the 
hot darkness an immense array of open, 


brightly lighted windows. At the base 
of this populous structure was an eternal 
jangle of horse-etirs, and all round it, in 
the upper dusk, was a sinister hum of 
mosquitoes. The ground-floor of the hotel 
seemed to be a huge transparent cage, 
flinging a wide glare of gaslight into the 
street, of which it formed a sort of public 
adjunct, absorbing and einitting the pass- 
ers-by promiscuously. The young Eng- 
lishmen went in with every one else, 
from curiosity, and saw a couple of hun- 
dred men sitting on divans along a great 
marble -paved corridor, with their legs 
stretched out, together with several dozen 
more standing in a queue, as at the ticket- 
office of a railway station, before a brill- 
iantly illuminated counter of vast extent. 
These latter persons, who carried port- 
manteaus in the-ir hand, had a dejected, 
exhausted look ; their garments were not 
very fresh, and they seemed to be ren- 
dering some mysterious tribute to a mag- 
nificent young man with a waxed mus- 
tache, and a shirt-front adorned with 
diamond buttons, who every now and then 
dropped an absent glance over their mul- 
titudinous patience. They were American 
citizens doing homage to a hotel clerk. 

10 


“ I’m glad ]ie didn’t tell us to go there,” 
said one of our Englishmen, alluding to 
their friend on the steamer, who had told 
them so many things. Tliey walked up 
Fifth Avenue, where, for instance, he had 
told them that all the tirst families lived. 
But the first families were out of town, 
and our young travellers had only the 
satisfaction of seeing some of the second 
— or, perhaps, even the third — taking the 
evening air upon balconies and high 
flights of door-steps, in the streets which 
radiate from the more ornamental thor- 
oughfare. They went a little way down 
one of these side streets, and they saw 
young ladies in white dresses — charm- 
ing-looking persons — seated in graceful 
attitudes on the chocolate-colored steps. 
In one or two places these young ladies 
were conversing across the street with 
other young ladies seated in similar post- 
ures and costumes in front of the opposite 
houses, and in the warm night air their 
collocjuial tones sounded strange in the ears 



of the young Englishmen. 
One of our friends, never- 
theless — the younger one 
— intimated that he felt a 



disposition to 


interrupt a few of these soft familiar- 
ities; but his companion observed, per- 
tinently enough, that he had better be 
careful. “We must not begin with mak- 
ing mistakes,” said his companion. 

“ But he told us, you know — he told 
us,” urged the young man, alluding again 
to the friend on the steamer. 

“ Never mind what he told us !” an- 
swered his comrade, who, if he had greater 
talents, was also apparently more of a 
moralist. 

By bedtime — in their impatience to 
taste of a terrestrial couch again, our sea- 
farers went to bed early — it was still in- 
sufferably hot, and the buzz of the mosqui- 
toes at the open windows might have 
passed for an audible crepitation of the 
temperature. “We can’t stand this, you 
know,” the young Englishmen said to 
each other; and they tossed about all 
night more boisterously than they had 
tossed upon the Atlantic billows. On 
the morrow their first thought was that 
they would re-embark that day for Eng- 
land ; and then it occurred to them that 
they might find an asylum nearer at hand. 
The cave of ^olus became their ideal of 
comfort, and they wondered where the 
12 



Americans went when they wished to 
cool off. They had not the least idea, 
and they determined to apply for infor- 
mation to Mr. J. L. Westgate. This was 
the name inscribed in a bold liand on the 
back of a letter carefully preserved in tlie 
pocket-book of our junior traveller. Be- 
neath the address, in the left-hand corner 
of the envelope, were the wwds, “Intro- 
ducing Lord Lambeth and Percy Beau- 
mont, Esq.” The letter had been given 
to the two Englishmen by a good friend 
of theirs in London, who had been in 
America two years previously, and had 
singled out Mr. J. L. Westgate from the 
many friends he had left there as the 
consignee, as it were, of his compatriots. 
“He is a capital fellow,” the Englishman 
in London had said, “ and he has got an 
awfully pretty wife. He’s tremendously 
hospitable — he will do everything in the 
world for you ; and as he knows every 
one over there, it is quite needless I should 
give you any other introduction. He 
will make you see every one ; trust to 
him for putting you into circulation. 
He has got a tremendously pretty wife.” 
It was natural that in the hour of trib- 
ulation Lord Lambeth and Mr. Percy 


Beaumont should have bethought them- 
selves of a gentleman whose attractions 
had been thus vividly depicted — all the 
more so that he lived in Fifth Avenue, 
and that Fifth Avenue, as they had ascer- 
tained the night before, was contiguous to 
their hotel. “ Ten to one he’ll be out of 
town,” said Percy Beaumont ; “ but we can 
at least find out where he has gone, and 
we can immediately start in pursuit. He 
can't possibly have gone to a hotter place, 
you know.” 

“ Oh, there’s only one hotter place,” 
said Lord Lambeth, “ and I hope he hasn’t 
gone there.” 

They strolled along the shady side of 
the street to the number indicated upon 
the precious letter. The house presented 
an imposing chocolate -colored expanse, 
relieved by facings and window cornices 
of florid sculpture, and by a couple of 
dusty rose-trees which clambered over 
the balconies and the portico. This last- 
mentioned feature was approached by a 
monumental flight of steps. 

“ Bather better than a London house,” 
said Lord Lambeth, looking down from 
this altitude, after they had rung the 
bell. 

u 


“ It <*lepeiK]s upon what London house 
you mean,” replied liis companion. “You 
have a tremendous chance to get wet be- 
tween the liouse door and your carriage.” 

“Well,” said Lord Lambeth, glancing 
at the burning heavens, “I ‘guess’ it 
doesn’t rain so much here!” 

The door was opened by a long negro 
in a white jacket, who grinned familiarly 
when Lord Lambeth asked for Mr. West- 



gate. 

“He ain’t at home, sah; 
he’s down town at his o’fice.” 

“Oh, at his office?” said 
the visitor. “ And when will 
he be at home ?” 

“Well, sah, when he goes 
out dis way in de mo’ning, he 
ain’t liable to come home all 
day.” 

This was discouraging; but the ad- 
dress of Mr. Westgate’s office was freely 
imparted by the intelligent black, and 
was taken down by Percy Beaumont in 
his pocket-book. The two gentlemen 
then returned, languidly, to their hotel, 
and sent for a hackney-coach, and in this 
commodious vehicle they rolled comfort- 
ably down - town. They measured the 


15 


whole length of Broadway again, and 
found it a path of fire ; and then, defiect- 
ing to the left, they were deposited by 
their conductor before a fresh, light, or- 
namental structure, ten stories high, in a 
street crowded with keen - faced, light- 
limbed young men, who were running 
about very quickly, and stopping each 
other eagerly at corners and in doorways. 
Passing into this brilliant building, they 
were introduced by one of the keen-faced 
young men — he was a charming fellow, 
in wonderful cream-colored garments an^d 
a hat with a blue ribbon, who had evi- 
dently perceived them to be aliens and 
helpless— to a very snug hydraulic eleva- 
tor, in which they took their place with 
many other persons, and which, shooting 
upward in its vertical socket, presently 
projected them into the seventh horizon- 
tal compartment of the edifice. Here, 
after brief delay, they found themselves 
face to face with the friend of their 
friend in London. His office was com- 
posed of several different rooms, and they 
waited very silently in one of them after 
they had sent in their letter and their 
•cards. The letter was not one which it 
would take Mr. Westgate very long to 


read, but he came out to speak to them 
more instantly than they could have ex- 
pected ; he had evidently jumped up from 
his work. He was a tail, lean personage, 
and was dressed all in fresh white linen ; 
he had a thin, sharp, familiar face, with an 
expression that was at one and the same 
time sociable and business-like, a quick, in- 
telligent eye, and a large brown mustache, 
which concealed his mouth and made his 
chin beneath it look small. Lord Lambeth 
thought he looked tremendously clever. 

“How do you do. Lord Lambeth — how 
do you do, sir?” he said, holding the 
open letter in his hand. “ I’m very glad 
to see you ; I hope you’re very well. 
You had better come in here; I think 
it’s cooler,” and he led the way into an- 
other room, where there were law-books 
and papers, and windows wide open be- 
neath striped awning. Just opposite one 
of the windows, on a line with his eyes. 
Lord Lambeth observed the weather-vane 
of a church steeple. The uproar of the 
street sounded infinitely far below, and 
Lord Lambeth felt very high in the air. 
“I say it’s cooler,” pursued their host, 
“ but everything is relative. How do 
you stand the heat ?” 

17 








“ I can’t say we like it,” said Lord 
Lambeth; “but Beaumont likes it bet- 
ter than 1.” 

‘‘Well, it won’t last,” Mr. Westgate 
very cheerfully declared ; “ nothing un- 
pleasant lasts over here. It was very hot 
when Captain Littledale was here ; he 
did nothing but drink sherry-cobblers. 
He expresses some doubt in his letter 
whether I will remember him — as if I 
didn’t remember making six sherry-cob- 
blers for him one day in about twenty 
minutes. I hope you left him well, two 
years having elasped since then.” 

“ Oh yes, he’s all right,” said Lord 
Lambeth. 

“I am always very glad to see your 
countrymen,” Mr. AVestgate pursued. 
“I thought it would be time some of 
you should be coming along. A friend 
of mine was saying to me only a day or 
two ago, ‘ It’s time for the watermelons 
and the Englishmen.’” 

“ The Englishmen and the water- 
melons just now are about the same 
thing,” Percy Beaumont said, wiping 
his dripping 
forehead. 
“Ah, well, 



we’ll put you on ice, as we do the mel- 
ons. You must go down to Newport.” 

“ We’ll go anywhere,” said Lord Lam- 
beth. 

“Yes, you want to go to Newport; 
that’s what you want to do,” Mr. West- 
gate affirmed. “ But let’s see — when did 
you get here f ’ 

“Only yesterday,” said Percy Beau- 
mont. 

“Ah, yes, by the Biissia. AY here are 
you staying?” 

“ At the Hanover, I think they call it.” 

“ Pretty comfortable ?” inquired Mr. 
W estgate. 

“ It seems a capital place, but I can’t 
say we like the gnats,” said Lord Lam- 
beth. 

Mr. AVestgate stared and laughed. “Oh 
no, of course you don’t like the gnats. 
AVe shall expect you to like a good many 
things over here, but we slia’n’t insist 
upon your liking the gnats; though cer- 
tainly you’ll admit that, as gnats, they 
are line, eh ? But you oughtn’t to re- 
main in the city.” 

“ So we think,” said Lord Lambeth. 
“ If you would kindly suggest some- 
thing — ” 


19 



‘‘Suggest something, my dear sir?” 
and Mr. Westgate looked at him, narrow- 
ing his eyelids. “ Open your mouth and 
shut your eyes ! Leave it to me, and I’ll 
put you through. It’s a matter of na- 
tional pride with me that all Englishmen 
should have a good time ; and as I have 
had considerable practice, I have learned 
to minister to their wants. I find they 
generally want the right thing. So just 
please to consider yourselves my proper- 
ty; and if any one should try to appropri- 
ate you, please to say, ‘ Hands off ; too late 
for the market.’ But let’s see,” continued 
the American, in his slow, humor- 
ous voice, with a distinctness of ut- 
terance which appeared to his visit- 
ors to be a part of a humor- 
al ous intention — a strangely 
leisurely speculative voice 
for a man evidently so busy 
and, as they felt, so professional — 
“ let’s see ; are you going to make 
something of a stay. Lord Lam- 
beth ?” 

“ Oh dear no,” said the young 


Englishman ; ‘‘ my cousin was coming 
over on some business, so I just came 
across, at an hour’s notice, for the lark.” 

‘‘Is it your first visit to the United 
States 

“Oh dear yes.” 

“ I was obliged to come on some busi- 
ness,” said Percy Beaumont, “ and I 
brought Lambeth along.” 

“And you have been here before, sir?” 

“ Never — never.” 

“ I thought, from your referring to 
business — ” said Mr. AVestgate. 

“ Oil, you see I’m by 
way of being a barris- 
ter,” Percy Beaumont 
answered. “I know 
some people that think 
of bringing a suit against 
one of your railways, 
and they asked me to come over 
and take measures accordingly.” 

Mr. AVestgate gave one of his 
slow, keen looks again. “ AVhat’s 
your railroad?” he asked. 

“ The Tennessee Central.” 

The American tilted back his 
chair a little, and poised it an in- 
stant. “ AA^ell, I’m sorry you want 
21 


A. 




to attack one of oiir institutions,” he said, 
smiling. “ But I guess you had better en- 
joy j ourself first 

“I’m certainly rather afraid I can’t 
work in this weather,” the young barris- 
ter confessed. 

“ Leave that to the natives,” said Mr. 
Westgate. “Leave the Tennessee Cen- 
tral to me, Mr. Beaumont. Some day 
we’ll talk it over, and I guess I can make 
it square. But I didn’t know you Eng- 
lishmen ever did any work, in the upper 
classes.” 

“ Oh, we do a lot of work ; don’t we, 
Lambeth?” asked Percy Beaumont. 

“ I must certainly be at home by the 
19th of September,” said the younger 
Englishman, irrelevantly but gently. 

“ For the shooting, eh ? or is it the 
hunting, or the fishing?” inquired his 
entertainer. 

“ Oh, I must be in Scotland,” 
said Lord Lambeth, blushing a 
little. 

“ Well, then,” rejoined Mr. West- 
gate, “ you had better amuse your- 
self first, also. You must go down 
and see Mrs. AYestgate.” 

“ We should be so happy, if you 


would kindly tell us the train,” said Percy 
Beaumont. 

“ It isn’t a train — it’s a boat.” 

“Ob, I see. And what is the name of 
— a — the — a — town ?” 

“It isn’t a town,” said Mr. Westgate, 
laughing. “It’s a — well, what shall I call 
it ? It’s a watering-place. In short, it’s 
Newport. You’ll see what it is. It’s 
cool ; that’s the principal thing. You 
will greatly oblige me by going down 
there and putting yourself into the hands 
of Mrs. Westgate. It isn’t perhaps for 
me to say it, but you couldn’t be in bet- 
ter hands. Also in those of her sister, 
who is staying with her. She is very 
fond of Englishmen. She thinks there 
is nothing like them.” 

“ Mrs. Westgate or — a — her sister?” 
asked Percy Beaumont, modestly, yet in 
the tone of an inquiring traveller. 

“Oh, I mean my wife,” said Mr. West- 
gate. “I don’t suppose my sister-in-law 
knows much about them. She has always 
led a very quiet life ; she has lived in 
Boston.” 

Percy Beaumont listened with interest. 
“ That, I believe,” he said, “ is the most 
— a — intellectual tcwn ?” 

23 


“ I believe it is very intellectual. I 
don’t go there much,” responded his host. 

“I say, we ought to go there,” said 
Lord Lambeth to his companion. 

“ Oh, Lord Lambeth, wait till the 
great heat is over,” Mr. Westgate inter- 
posed. “ Boston in this weather would 
be very trying; it’s not the temperature 
for intellectual exertion. At Boston, you 
know, you have to pass an examination 
at the city limits; and when you come 
away they give you a kind of degree.” 

Lord Lambeth stared, blushing a little ; 
and Percy Beaumont stared a little also 
— but only with his fine natural complex- 
ion — glancing aside after a moment to 
see that his companion was not looking 
too credulous, for he had heard a great 
deal of American humor. “ I dare say it 
is very jolly,” said the younger gentle- 
man. 

“I dare say it is,” said Mr. Westgate. 
“Only I must impress upon you that at 
present — to-morrow morning, at an early 
hour — you will be expected at Newport. 
We have a house there; half the people 
of New York go there for the summer. I 
am not sure that at this very moment my 
wife can take you in ; she has got a lot 

24 



of people staying with her ; I don’t know 
who they all are ; only she may have no 
room. Bnt yon can begin with the hotel, 
and meanwhile you can live at my house. 
In that way — simply sleeping at the hotel 
— you will tind it tolerable. For the rest, 
you must make yourself at home at my 
place. You mustn’t be shy, you know; 
if you are only here for a month, that 
will be a great waste of time. Mrs. 
Westgate won’t neglect you, and you 
had better not try to resist her. I 
know something about that. I ex- 
pect you’ll find some pretty girls on 
the premises. I shall write to my 
wife by this afternoon’s mail, and 
to-morrow morning she and Miss 
Alden Avill look out for you. Just 
walk right in and make yourself 
comfortable. .Your steamer leaves 
from this part of the city, and I 
will immediately send out and get 
you a cabin. Then, at half-past 
four o’clock, just call for me 
here, and I will go with you and 
put you on board. It’s a big 
boat ; you might get lost. A 
few days hence, at the end of 
the week, I will come down 


to Newport, and see how you are getting 
on.” 

The two young Englishmen inaugu- 
rated the policy of not resisting Mrs. 
Westgate by submitting, with great do- 
cility and thankfulness, to her husband. 
He was evidently a very good fellow, 
and he made an impression upon his vis- 
itors; his hospitality seemed to recom- 
mend itself consciously — with a friendly 
wink, as it were — as if it hinted, judi- 
ciously, that you could not possibly make 
a better bargain. Lord Lambeth and his 
cousin left their entertainer to his labors 
and returned to their hotel, where they 
spent three or four hours in their respec- 
tive shower-baths. Percy Beaumont had 
suggested that they ought to see some- 
thing of the town ; but Oh, d — n the 
town !” his noble kinsman had rejoined. 
They returned to Mr. Westgate’s office 
in a carriage, with their luggage, very 
punctually ; but it must be reluctantly 
recorded that, this time, he kept them 
waiting so long that they felt themselves 
missing the steamer, and were deterred 
only by an amiable modesty from dis- 
pensing with his attendance, and starting 

on a hasty scramble to the wharf. But 
26 


when at last he appeared, and the car- 
riage plunged into the purlieus of Broad- 
way, they jolted and jostled to such good 
purpose that they reached the huge white 
vessel while the bell for departure was 
still ringing, and the absorption of pas- 
sengers still active. It was indeed, as 
Mr. Westgate had said, a big boat, and 
his leadership in the innumerable and 
interminable corridors and cabins, with 
which he seemed perfectly acquainted, 
and of which any one and every one ap- 
peared to have the entree, was very grate- 
ful to the slightly bewildered voyagers. 
He showed them their state-room — a spa- 
cious apartment, embellished with gas- 
lamps, mirrors en pied, and sculptui-ed 
furniture — and then, long after they had 
been intimately convinced that the steam- 
er was in motion and launched upon the 
unknown stream that they were about to 
navigate, he bade them a sociable fare- 
well. 

“Well, good-bye. Lord Lambeth,” he 
said ; “good-bye, Mr. Percy Beaumont. I 
hope you’ll have a good time. Just let 
them do what they want with you. I’ll 
come down by- and -by and look after 
yon.” 


27 



FALL W' 

STEAMBO/ 

NEWPOl 


The young Englishmen 
emerged from their cabin 
and amused themselves with w^an- 
dering about the immense labyrin- 
thine steamer, which struck them 
as an extraordinary mixture of a 
ship and a hotel. It was dense- 
ly crowded with passengers, the 
larger number of whom appeared 
to be ladies and very young chil- 
dren ; and in the big saloons, orna- 
mented in white and gold, which 
followed each other in surprising 
succession, beneath the swinging 
gaslight, and among the small side 
passages where the negro domes- 
tics of both sexes assembled with 
an air of philosophic leisure, ev- 
ery one \vas moving to and fro and 
exchanging loud and familiar ob- 
servations. Eventually, at the in- 
stance of a discriminating black, 
our young men went and had some 
“supper” in a wonderful place ar- 
ranged like a theatre, where, in a 
gilded gallery, upon which little 


boxes appeared to open, a large orches- 
tra was playing operatic selections, and, 
below, people were handing about bills 
of fare, as if they had been programmes. 
All this was sufficiently curious ; but the 
agreeable thing, later, was to sit out on 
one of the great white decks of the 
steamer, in the warm, breezy darkness, 
and, in the vague starlight, to make out 
the line of low, mysterious coast. The 
young Englishmen tried American ci- 
gars — those of Mr. Westgate — and talked 
together as they usually talked, with many 
odd silences, lapses of logic, and incon- 
gruities of transition, like people who 
have grown old together, and learned to 
supply each other’s missing phrases ; or, 
more especially, like people thoroughly 
conscious of a common point of view, so 
that a style of conversation superficially 
lacking in finish might suffice for refer- 
ence to a fund of associations in the light 
of which everything was all right. 

“We really seem to be going out to 
sea,” Percy Beaumont observed. “Upon 
my word, we are going back to England. 
He has shipped us off again. I call that 
‘ real mean.’ ” 

“ I suppose it’s all right,” said Lord 

29 



Lambeth. ‘‘I want to see 
those pretty girls at New- 
port You know he told us the 
place was an island ; and aren’t all 
i / islands in the sea?” 

“Well,” resumed the elder trav- 
eller after a while, “if his 

_ house is as good as his 

cigars, we shall do very 
well indeed.” 

“ He seems a very good fel- 
low,” said Lord Lambeth, as 
if this idea just occurred to 
him. 

“ I say, we had better remain at the 
inn,” rejoined his companion, present- 
ly. “ I don’t think I like the way he 
spoke of his house. I don’t like stop- 
ping in the house with such a tremen- 
dous lot of women.” 

“ Oh, I don’t mind,” said Lord Lam- 
beth. And then they smoked a while in 
silence. “ Fancy his thinking we do no 
work in England !” the young man re- 
sumed. 

“ I dare say he didn’t really think so,” 
said Percy Beaumont. 



I 


“Well, I guess they don’t know much 
about England over here!” declared Lord 





Lambeth, humorously. And then there 
was another long pause. “ He was dev- 
ilish civil,” observed the young noble- 
man. 

“Hothing, certainly, could have been 
more civil,” rejoined his companion. 

“ Littledale said his wife was great 
fun,” said Lord Lambeth. 

“ Whose wife^ — Littledale’s f ’ 

“This American’s — Mrs. AVestgate. 
AVhat’s his name? J. L.” 

Beaumont was silent a moment. 

“ What was fun to Littledale,” he said 
at last, rather sententiously, “may 
be death to us.” 

“ What do you mean by that ?” 
asked his kinsman. “ I am as good 
a man as Littledale.” 

“ My dear boy, I hope you won’t 
begin to flirt,” said Percy Beaumont. 

“ I don’t care. I dare say 1 sha’n’t 
begin.” 

“ AVith a married woman, if she’s 
bent upon it, it’s all very well,” 

Beaumont expounded. “ But our 

friend mentioned a voune: lady 


God’s sake, don’t get entangled with 
her!” 

“ How do you mean entangled ?” 

“ Depend upon it she will try to hook 
you.” 

“ Oh, bother !” said Lord Lambeth. 

‘‘ American girls are very clever,” urged 
his companion. 

‘‘ So much the better,” the young man 
declared. 

“ I fancy they are always up to some 
game of that sort,” Beaumont continued. 

“ They can’t be worse than they are in 
England,” said Lord Lambeth, judicially. 

“ Ah, but in England,” replied Beau- 
mont, “you have got your natural pro- 
tectors. You have got your mother and 
sisters.” 

“ My mother and sisters — ” began the 
young nobleman, with a certain energy. 
But he stopped in time, puffing at his 
cigar. 

“Your mother spoke to me about it, 
with tears in her eyes,” said Percy Beau- 
mont. “ She said she felt very nervous. 
I promised to keep you out of mischief.” 

“ You had better take care of yourself,” 
said the object of maternal and ducal so- 
licitude. 


32 


Ah,” rejoined the young barrister, “ I 
haven’t the expectation of a hundred 
thousand a year, not to mention other 
attractions.” 

“Well,” said Lord Lambeth, “don’t 
cry out before you’re hurt !” 

It was certainly very much cooler at 



" Newport, where our travellers found 
themselves assigned to a couple of di- 
minutive bedrooms in a far-away angle 
of an immense hotel. They had gone 
ashore in the early summer twilight, and 
had very promptly put themselves to 
bed; thanks to which circumstance, and 
to their having, during the previous hours 
in their commodious cabin slept the sleep 
of youth and health, they began to feel, 
towards eleven o’clock, very alert and in- 


33 



quisitive. They looked out of their win- 
dows across a row of small green fields, 
bordered with low stone- walls of rude 
construction, and saw a deep blue ocean 
lying beneath a deep blue sky, and fleck- 
ed now and then with scintillating patch- 
es of foam. A strong, fresh breeze came 
in through the curtainless casements, and 
prompted our young men to observe gen- 
erally that it didn’t seem half a bad cli- 
mate. They made other observations 
after they had emerged from their rooms 
in pursuit of breakfast — a meal of which 
they partook in a huge bare hall, where 
a liundred negroes in white jackets were 
shuffling about upon an uncarpeted floor ; 
where the flies were superabundant, and 
the tables and dishes covered over with a 
strange, voluminous integument of coarse 
blue gauze ; and where several little boys 
and girls, who had risen late, were seated 
in fastidious solitude at the morning re- 
past. These young persons had not the 
morning paper before them, but they 
were engaged in languid perusal of 
the bill of fare. 

This latter document was a great 
puzzle to our friends, who, on re- 
flecting that its bewildering catego- 


ries had relation to breakfast alone, had 
an uneasy prevision of an encjclopsedic 
dinner list. They found a great deal of 
entertainment at the hotel, an enormous 
wooden structure, for the erection of 
which- it seemed to them that the virgin 
forests of the West must have been terri- 
bly deflowered. It was perforated from 
end to end with immense bare corridors, 
through which a strong draught was 
blowing — bearing along wonderful fig- 
ures of ladies in white morning -dresses 
and clouds of Valenciennes lace, who 
seemed to float down the long vistas with 


expanded furbelows like angels spread- 
ing their wings. In front was a gigan- 
tic veranda, upon which an army might 
have encamped — a vast wooden terrace, 
with a roof as lofty as the nave of a ca- 
thedral. Here our young Englishmen 
enjoyed, as they supposed, a glimpse of 
American society, which was distributed 
over the measureless expanse in a varie- 
ty of sedentary attitudes, and appeared 
to consist largely of pretty young girls, 
dressed as if for a fHe chamjpUi'e^ 
swaying to and fro in rocking-chairs, 
fanning themselves with large straw 
fans, and enjoying an enviable ex- 


/ 



I 


emption from social cares. Lord Lam- 
beth had a theory, which it miglit be in- 
teresting to trace to its origin, that it 
would be not only agreeable, but easily 
possible, to enter into relations with one 
of these young ladies ; and his companion 
(as he had done a couple of days before) 
found occasion to check the young no- 
bleman’s colloquial impulses. 

“ You had better take care,” said Percy 
Beaumont, “ or you will have an offended 
father or brother pulling out a bowie- 
knife,” 

“I assure you it is all right,” Lord 
Lambeth replied. “ You know the Amer- 
icans come to these big hotels to make 
acquaintances.” 

“ I know nothing about it, and neither 
do you,” said his kinsman, who, like a 
clever man, had begun to perceive that 
the observation of American society de- 
manded a readjustment of one’s stand- 
ard. 

“ Hang it, then, let’s find out !” cried 
Lord Lambeth, with some impatience. 
“Yon know I don’t want to miss any- 
thing.” 

“We will find out,” said Percy Beau- 
mont, very reasonably. “We will go 

36 











and see Mrs. Westgate, and make all the 
proper inquiries.” 

And so the two inquiring Englishmen, 
who had this lady’s address inscribed in 
her husband’s hand upon a card, descend- 
ed from the veranda of the big hotel and 
took their way, according to direction, 
along a large, straight road, past a series 
of fresh - looking villas embosomed in 
shrubs and flowers, and enclosed in an 
ingenious variety of wooden palings. 
The morning was brilliant and cool, the 
villas were smart and snug, and the walk 
of the young travellers was ver}^ en- 
tertaining. Everything looked as if it 
had received a coat of fresh paint the 
day before — the red roofs, the green 
shutters, the clean, bright browns and 
bufls of the house fronts. The flower 
beds on the little lawns seemed to spar- 
kle in the radiant air, and the gravel 
in the short carriage sweeps to flash and 
twinkle. Along the road came a hun- 
dred little basket-phaetons, in which, al- 
most always, a couple of ladies were sit- 
ting — ladies in white dresses and long 
white gloves, holding the reins and look- 
ing at the two Englishmen — whose na- 
tionality was not elusive — through thick 


blue veils tied tightly about their faces, 
as if to guard their complexions. At 
last the young men came within sight of 
the sea again, and then, having interro- 
gated a gardener over the paling of a 
villa, they turned into an open gate. 
Here they found themselves face to face 
with the ocean and with a very pictu- 
resque structure, resembling a magnified 
chalet, which was perched upon a green 
embankment just above it. The house 
had a veranda of extraordinary width all 
around it, and a great many doors and 
windows standing open to the veranda. 
These various apertures had, in common, 
such an accessible, hospitable air, such a 
breezy flutter within of light curtains, 
such expansive thresholds and reassuring 
interiors, that our friends hardly knew 
which was the regular entrance, and, after 
hesitating a moment, presented them- 
selves at one of the windows. The room 
within was dark, but in a moment a grace- 
ful figure vaguely shaped itself in the 
rich-looking gloom, and a lady came to 
meet them. Then they saw that she had 
been seated at a table writing, and that 
she had heard them and had got up. She 
stepped out into the light; she wore a 



frank, charming smile, with which she 
held out her hand to Percy Beaumont. 

“ Oh, you must be Lord Lambeth and 
Mr. Beaumont,” she said. “ I have heard 
from my husband that you would come. 
I am extremely glad to see you.” And 
she shook hands with each of her visitors. 
Her visitors were a little shy, but they 
had very good manners ; they responded 
with smiles and exclamations, and they 
apologized for not knowing the front 
door. The lady rejoined, with vivacity, 
that when she wanted to see people very 
much she did not insist upon those dis- 
tinctions, and that Mr. Westgate had 
written to her of his English friends in 
terms that made her really anxious. “ He 
said you were so terribly prostrated,” said 
Mrs. Westgate. 

“ Oh, you mean by the heat ?” 
replied Percy Beaumont. “We 
were rather knocked up, but we 
feel wonderfully better. We 
had such a jolly — a— voyage 
down here. It’s so very good 
of you to mind.” 

“ Yes, it’s so very kind 
of you,” murmured 
Lord Lambeth. 


Mrs. Westgate stood smiling; she was 
extremely pretty. “ Well, I did mind,” 
she said ; “and I thought of sending for 
you this morning to the Ocean House. 
I am very glad you are better, and I am 
charmed you have arrived. You must 
come round to the other side of the 
piazza.” And she led the way, with a 
light, smooth step, looking back at the 
young men and smiling. 

The other side of the piazza was, as 
Lord Lambeth presently remarked, a very 
jolly place. It was of the most liberal pro- 
portions, and with its awnings, its fanci- 
ful chairs, its cushions and rugs, its view 
of the ocean, close at hand, tumbling 
along the base of the low cliffs whose 
level tops intervened in lawn-like smooth- 
ness, it formed a charming complement 
to the drawing-room. As such it was in 
course of use at the present moment; it 
was occupied by a social circle. There 
were several ladies and two or three gen- 
tlemen, to whom Mrs. Westgate proceeded 
to introduce the distinguished strangers. 
She mentioned a great many names very 
freely and distinctly ; the young English- 
men, shuffling about and bowing, were 
rather bewildered. But at last they were 

42 


provided with chairs — low, wicker chairs, 
gilded, and tied with a great many rib- 
bons — and one of the ladies (a very young 
person, with a little snub-nose and several 
dimples) offered Percy Beaumont a fan. 
The fan was also adorned with pink love- 
knots ; but Percy Beaumont declined it, 
altliough he was very hot. Presently, 
however, it became cooler; the breeze 
from the sea was delicious, the view was 
charming, and the people sitting there 
looked exceedingly fresh and comfortable. 
Several of the ladies seemed to be young 
girls, and the gentlemen were slim, fair 
youths, such as our friends had seen the 
day before in IS^ew York. The ladies 
were working upon bands of tapestry, 
and one of the young men had an open 
book in his lap. Beaumont afterwards 
learned from one of the ladies that this 
young man had been reading aloud; that 
he was from Boston, and was very fond 
of readino: aloud. Beaumont said it was 
a great pity that they had interrupted 
him ; he should like so much (from all he 
had heard) to hear a Bostonian read. 
Couldn’t the young man be induced to 
go on ? 

“Oh no,” said his informant, very 

43 










freely ; “ he wouldn’t be able to get the 
young ladies to attend to him now.” 

There was something very friendly, 
Beaumont perceived, in the attitude of 
the company ; they looked at the young 
Englishmen with an air of animated sym- 
pathy and interest ; they smiled, brightly 
and unanimously, at everything either of 
I the visitors said. Lord Lambeth and his 
^ companion felt that they were being made 
; very welcome. Mrs. W estgate seated her- 
self between them, and, talking a great 
deal to each, they had occasion to observe 
I that she was as pretty as their friend 
I Littledale had promised. She was tliirty 
Wears old, with the eyes and the smile of 
j a girl of seventeen, and she was extreme- 
ly light and graceful — elegant, exquisite. 
Mrs. Westgate was extremely spontane- 
ous. She was very frank and demonstra- 
tive, and appeared always — while she 
looked at you delightedly with her beau- 
tiful young eyes — to be making sudden 
confessions and concessions after momen- 
tary hesitations. 

“We shall expect to see a great deal 
of you,” she said to Lord Lambeth, with 
a kind of joyous earnestness. “ We are 


I 


very fond of Englishmen here — that is, 
there are a great many we have been fond 
of. After a day or two you must come 
and stay with us ; we hope you will stay 
a long time. ISTewport’s a very nice place 
when you come really to know it — when 
you know plenty of people. Of course 
you and Mr. Beaumont will have no diffi- 
culty about that. Englishmen are very 
well received here ; there are almost al- 
ways two or three of them about. I think 
they always like it, and I must say I 
should think they would. They receive 
ever so much attention. I must say I 
think they sometimes get spoiled ; but I 
am sure you and Mr. Beaumont are proof 
against that. 

“ My husband tells me you are a friend 
of Captain Littledale. He was such a 
charming man : he made himself most 
agreeable here, and I am sure I wonder 
he didn’t stay. It couldn’t have been 
pleasanter for him in his own country, 
though, I suppose, it is very pleasant in 
England — for English people. I don’t 
know myself ; I have been there very 
little. I have been a great deal abroad, 
but I am always on the Continent. I 
must say I am extremely fond of Paris ; 



you know we Americans always are ; we 
go there when we die. Did you ever 
hear that before ? That was said by a 
great wit — I mean the good Americans ; 
but we are all good ; you’ll see that for 
yourself. 

‘‘All I know of England is London, 
and all I know of London is that place 
on that little corner, you know, where 
you buy jackets — jackets with that coarse 
braid and those big buttons. They make 
very good jackets in London ; I will do 
you the justice to say that. And some 
people like the hats ; but about the hats 
I was always a heretic ; I always got my 
hats in Paris. You can’t wear an English 
hat — at least, I never could — unless you 
dress your hair aVAnglaise; and I must 
say that is a talent I never possessed. In 
Paris they will make things to suit your 
peculiarities ; but in England I think you 
like much more to have — how shall I say 
it? — one thing for everybody. I mean 
as regards dress. I don’t know about 
other things ; but I have always supposed 
that in other things everything was dif- 
ferent. I mean according to the people 
— according to the classes, and all that. 
I am afraid you will think that I don’t 

4G 



take a very favorable view; but you know 
you can’t take a very favorable view in 
Dover Street in the month of E^ovember. 
That has always been my fate. 

“ Do you know Jones’s Hotel, in Dover 
Street ? That’s all I know of England. 
Of course every one admits that the Eng- 
lish hotels are your weak point. There 
was always the most frightful fog; I 
couldn’t see to try my things on. When 
I got over to America — into the light — I 
usually found they were twice too big. 
The next time I mean to go in the season; 
I think I shall go next year. I want very 
much to take my sister; she has never 
been to England. I don’t know whether 
you know what I mean by saying that 
the Englishmen who come here some- 
times get spoiled. I mean that they take 
things as a matter of course — things that 
are done for them. How, naturally, they 
are only a matter of course when the 
Englishmen are very nice. But, of course, 
they are almost always very nice. Of 
course this isn’t nearly such an interest- 
ing country as England ; there are not 
nearly so many things to see, and we 
haven’t your country life. I have never 
seen anything of your country life ; when 

47 


I am in Europe I am always on the Conti- 
nent. But I have heard a great deal 
about it ; I know that when you are 
among yourselves in the country you have 
the most beautiful time. Of course we 
have nothing of that sort ; we have noth- 
ing on that scale. 

“ I don’t apologize, Lord Lambeth ; 
some Americans are always apologizing ; 
you must have noticed that. We have 
the reputation of always boasting and 
bragging and weaving the American flag ; 
but I must say that what strikes me is 
tliat we are perpetually making excuses 
and trying to smooth things over. The 
American flag has quite gone out of fash- 
ion ; it’s very carefully folded up like an 
old table-cloth. Why should we apol- 
ogize? The English never apologize — 
do they? No; I must say I never apol- 
ogize. You must take us as we come — 
with all our imperfections on our heads. 
Of course we haven’t your country life, 
and your old ruins, and your great estates, 
and your leisure class, and all that. But 
if we haven’t, I should think you might 
And it a pleasant change — I think any 
country is pleasant where they have pleas- 
ant manners. 


48 


‘‘ Captain Littledale told me he had 
never seen such pleasant manners as at 
[N’ewport, and he had been a great deal 
in European society. Hadn’t he been in 
the diplomatic service ? He told me the 
dream of his life was to get appointed to 
a diplomatic post at Washington. But 
he doesn’t seem to have succeeded. I 
suppose that in England promotion — and 
all that sort of thing — is fearfully slow. 
With us, you know, it’s a great deal too 
fast. You see, I admit our drawbacks. 
But I must confess I think I^ewport is 
an ideal place. I don’t know anything 
like it anywhere. Captain Littledale 
told me he didn’t know anything like it 
anywhere. It’s entirely different from 
most watering-places ; it’s a most charm- 
ing life. I must say I think that when 
one goes to a foreign country one ought 
to enjoy the differences. Of course there 
are differences, otherwise what did one 
come abroad for? Look for your pleas- 
ure in the differences. Lord Lambeth ; 
that’s the way to do it ; and then I am 
sure you will find American society — at 
least, Newport society — most charming 
and most interesting. I wish very much 
my husband were here ; but he’s dread- 


fully confined to New York. I suppose 
you think that is very strange — for a 
gentleman. But you see we haven’t any 
leisure class.” 

Mrs. Westgate’s discourse, delivered in 
a soft, sweet voice, fiowed on like a min- 
iature torrent, and was interrupted by a 
hundred little smiles, glances, and gest- 
ures, which might have figured the ir- 
regularities and obstructions of such a 
stream. Lord Lambeth listened to her 
with, it must be confessed, a rather in- 
effectual attention, although he indulged 
in a good many little murmurs and ejac- 
ulations of assent and deprecation. He 
had no great faculty for apprehending 
generalizations. There were some three 
or four indeed which, in the play of his 
own intelligence, he had originated, and 
which had seemed convenient at the mo- 
ment ; but at the present time he could 
hardly have been said to follow Mrs. 
Westgate as she darted gracefully about 
in the sea of speculation. Fortunately, 
she asked for no special rejoinder, for she 
looked about at the rest of the company 
as well, and smiled at Percy Beaumont, 
on the other side of her, as if he, too, must 
understand her and agree with her. He 
60 



was rather more successful than his com- 
panion ; for besides being, as we know, 
cleverer, his attention was not vaguely 
distracted by close vicinity to a remark- 
ably interesting young girl with dark 
hair and blue eyes. This was the case 
with Lord Lambeth, to whom it occurred 
after a while that the young girl with 
blue eyes and dark hair was the pretty 
sister of whom Mrs. Westgate had spoken. 
She presently turned to him with a re- 
mark which established her identity. 

“ It’s a great pity you 
couldn’t have brought 
my brother-in-law 


with you. It’s a great shame he should 
be in Xew York in these days.” 

“ Oh yes ; it’s so very hot,” said Lord ♦ 
Lambeth. 

“ It must be dreadful,” said the young 
girl. 

‘‘I dare say he is very busy,” Lord 
Lambeth observed. 

“ The gentlemen in America work too 
much,” the young girl went on. 

‘‘Oh, do they? I dare say they like 
it,” said her interlocutor. 

“ I don’t like it. One never sees them.” 

“ Don’t you, really ?” asked Lord Lam- 
beth. “ I shouldn’t have fancied that.” 

“ Have you come to study American 
manners ?” asked the young girl. 

“ Oh, I don’t know. I just camo over 
for a lark. I haven’t got long.” Here 
there was a pause, and Lord Lambeth be- 
gan again. “But Mr. Westgate will come 
down here, will he not ?” 

“I certainly hope he will. He must 
help to entertain you and Mr. Beaumont.” 

Lord Lambeth looked at her a little 
with his handsome brown eyes. “ Do 
you suppose he would have come down 
with us if we had urged him ?” 

Mr. W estgate’s sister-in-law was silent 

52 


a moment, and then, “ I dare say he 
would,” she answered. 

“ Eeally !” said the young Englishman. 
“He w’as immensely civil to Beaumont 
and me,” he added. 

“ He is a dear, good fellow,” the young 
lady rejoined, “and he is a perfect hus- 
band. But all Americans are that,” she 
continued, smiling. 

“Keally!” Lord Lambeth exclaimed 
again, and wondered whether all Amer- 
ican ladies had such a passion for gener- 
alizing as these two. 

He sat there a good while : there was 
a great deal of talk ; it was all very 
friendly and lively and jolly. Every one 
present, sooner or later, said something 
to him, and seemed to make a particular 
point of addressing him by name. Two 
or three other persons came in, and there 
was a shifting of seats and changing of 
places ; the gentlemen all entered into 
intimate conversation with the two Eng- 
lishmen, made them urgent offers of hos- 
pitality, and hoped they might frequently 
be of service to them. They were afraid 
Lord Lambeth and Mr. Beaumont were 
not very comfortable at their hotel ; that 
it was not, as one of them said, “ so pri- 

53 


vate as those dear little English inns of 
yonrs.” This last gentleman went on to 
say that unfortunately, as yet, perhaps, 
privacy was not quite so easily obtained 
in America as might be desired ; still, he 
continued, you could generally get it by 
paying for it ; in fact, you could get 
everything in America nowadays by 
paying for it. American life was cer- 
tainly growing a great deal more pri- 
vate ; it was growing very much like 
England. Everything at Newport, for 
instance, was thoroughly private ; Lord 
Lambeth would probably be struck with 
that. It was also represented to the 
strangers that it mattered very little 
whether their hotel was agreeable, as 
every one would want them to make 
visits ; they would stay with other peo- 
ple, and, in any case, they would be a 
great deal at Mrs. Westgate’s. They 
would find that very charming ; it was 
the pleasantest house in Newport. It 
was a pity Mr. Westgate was always 
away ; he was a man of the highest 
ability — very acute, very acute. He 
worked like a horse, and he left his wife 
— well, to do about as she liked. He 
liked her to enjoy herself, and she seemed 

64 




Alden was 
was in a dif- 


to know how. 

She was ex- 
tremely brill- 
iant, and a 
splendid talk- 
er. Some peo- 
ple preferred 
her sister ; but Miss 
very different; she 
ferent style altogether. Some people even 
thought her prettier, and, certainly, she 
was not so sharp. She was more in the 
Boston style ; she had lived a great deal 
in Boston, and she was very highly ed- 
ucated. Boston girls, it was propounded, 
were more like English young ladies. 

Lord Lambeth had presently a chance 
to test the truth of this proposition, for 
on the company rising in compliance with 
a suggestion from their hostess that they 
should walk down to the rocks and look 
at the sea, the young Englishman again 
found himself, as they strolled across the 
grass, in proximity to Mrs. Westgate’s 
sister. Though she was but a girl of 
twenty, she appeared to feel the obliga- 
tion to exert an active hospitality ; and 


this was, perhaps, the more to be noticed 
as she seemed bj nature a reserved and 
retiring person, and had little of her sis- 
ter’s fraternizing quality. She was, per- 
haps, rather too thin, and she was a little 
pale ; but as she moved slowly over the 
grass, with her arms hanging at her sides, 
looking gravely for a moment at the sea 
and then brightly, for all her gravity, at 
him. Lord Lambeth thought her at least 
as pretty as Mrs. W estgate, and reflected 
that if this was the Boston style the Bos- 
ton style was very charming. He thought 
she looked very clever ; he could imagine 
that she was highly educated ; but at the 
same time she seemed gentle and grace- 
ful. For all her cleverness, however, he 
felt that she had to think a little what to 
say; she didn’t say the flrst thing that 
came into her head ; he had come from a 
different part of the world and from a 
different society, and she was trying to 
adapt her conversation. The others were 
scattering themselves near the rocks ; 
Mrs. Westgate had charge of Percy Beau- 
mont. 

“Very jolly place, isn’t it?” said Lord 
Lambeth. “ It’s a very jolly place to sit.” 

‘‘Very charming,” said the young girl. 

56 


‘‘ I often sit here ; there are all kinds of 
cosey corners — as if they had been made 
on purpose.” 

“Ah, I suppose you have had some 
of them made,” said the young man. 

Miss Alden looked at him a moment. 
“ Oh no, we have had nothing made. It’s 
pure nature.” 

“ I should think you would have a few 
little benches — rustic seats, and that sort 
of thing. It might be so jolly to sit here, 
you know,” Lord Lambeth went on. 

“I am afraid we haven’t so many of 
those things as you,” said the young girl, 
thoughtfully. 

“ I dare say you go in for pure nature, 
as you were saying. Ilature over here 
must be so grand, you know.” And Lord 
Lambeth looked about him. 

The little coast -line hereabouts was 
very pretty, but it vras not at all grand, 
and Miss Alden appeared to rise to a per- 
ception of this fact. “I am afraid it 
seems to you very rough,” she said. “ It’s 
not like the coast scenery in Kingsley’s 
novels.” 

“ Ah, the novels always overdo it, you 
know,” Lord Lambeth rejoined. “ You 
must not go by the novels.” 

57 



They were wandering about a little on 
the rocks, and they stopped and looked 
down into a narrow chasm where the ris- 
ino^ tide made a curious bellowing sound. 
It was loud enough to prevent their hear- 
ing each other, and they stood there for 
some moments in silence. The young 
girl looked at her companion, observing 
him attentively, but covertly, as women, 
even when very young, know how to 
do. Lord Lambeth repaid observation ; 
tall, straight, and strong, he was hand- 
some as certain young Englishmen, and 
certain young Englishmen, almost alone, 
are handsome, with a perfect finish of 
feature and a look of intellectual repose 
and gentle good -temper which seemed 
somehow to be consequent upon his well- 
cut nose and chin. And to speak of 
Lord Lambeth’s expression of intellectual 


repose is not simply a civil way of say- 
ing that he looked stupid. He was ev- 
idently not a .young man of an irritable 
imagination ; he was not, as he would 
himself have said, tremendously clever ; 
but though there was a kind of appealing 
dulness in his eye, he looked thoroughly 
reasonable and competent, and his appear- 
ance proclaimed that to be a nobleman, 
an athlete, and an excellent fellow was a 
sufficiently brilliant combination of qual- 
ities. The young girl beside him, it may 
be attested without further delay, thought 
him the handsomest young man she had 
ever seen ; and Bessie Alden’s imagina- 
tion, unlike that of her companion, was 
irritable. He, however, w^as also making 
up his mind that she was uncommonly 
pretty. 

I dare say it’s very gay here — that 
you have lots of balls and parties,” he 
said ; for, if he was not tremendously 
clever, he rather prided himself on hav- 
ing, with women_, a sufficiency of con- 
versation. 

“Oh yes, there is a great deal going 
on,” Bessie Alden replied. “There are 
not so many balls, but there are a good 
many other things. You will see for 

59 


yourself ; we live rather in the midst of 
it.” 

“ It’s very kind of you to say that. 
But I thought you Americans were al- 
ways dancing.” 

“ I suppose we dance a good deal ; but 
I have never seen much of it. We don’t 
do it much, at any rate, in summer. And 
I am sure,” said Bessie Alden, “ that we 
don’t have so many balls as you have in 
England.” 

“ Beally !” exclaimed Lord Lambeth. 
“ Ah, in England it all depends, you 
know.” 

“ You will not think much of our gay- 
eties,” said the young girl, looking at 
him with a little mixture of interrogation 
and decision which was peculiar to her. 
The interrogation seemed earnest and the 
decision seemed arch ; but the mixture, at 
any rate, was charming. ‘‘ Those things, 
with us, are much less splendid than in 
England.” 

“ I fancy you don’t mean that,” said 
Lord Lambeth, laughing. 

I assure you I mean everything I say,” 
the young girl declared. “ Certainly, 
from what I have read about English 
society, it is very different.” 

60 


“ All well, you know,” said her com- 
panion, “ those things are often described 
by fellows who know nothing about them. 
You mustn’t mind what you read.” 

“ Oh, I shall mind what I read !” Bessie 
Alden rejoined. “ When I read Thackeray 
and George Eliot, how can I help mind- 
ing them ?” 

‘‘ Ah, well, Thackeray and George 
Eliot,” said the young nobleman ; “ I 
haven’t read much of them.” 

“ Don’t you suppose they know about 
society ?” asked Bessie Alden. 

“ Oh, I dare say they know ; they were 
so clever. But these fashionable novels,” 
said Lord Lambeth, “ they are awful rot, 
you know.” 

His companion looked at him a mo- 
ment with her dark blue eyes, and then 
she looked down in the chasm where the 
water was tumbling about. “ Do you 
mean Mrs. Gore, for instance ?” she said, 
presently, raising her eyes. 

am afraid I haven’t read that, ei- 
ther,” was the young man’s rejoinder, 
laughing a little and blushing. “I am 
afraid you’ll think I am not very intel- 
lectual.” 

“ Beading Mrs. Gore is no proof of in- 
61 











tellect. But I like reading everything , 
about English life — even poor books. 
am so curious about it.’’ 

“Aren’t ladies always curious?” asked 
the young man, jestingly. 

But Bessie Alden appeared to desire to 
answer his question seriously. “I don’t 
think so — I don’t think we are enough so 
— that we care about many things. So 
it’s all the more of a compliment,” she 
added, “ that I should want to know so 
much about England.” 

The logic here seemed a little close ; 
but Lord Lambeth, made conscious of a 
compliment, found his natural modesty 
just at hand. “ I am sure you know a 
great deal more than I do.” 

“ I really think I know a great deal — 
for a person who has never been there.” 

“ Have you really never been there ?” 
cried Lord Lambeth. “ Fancy !” 

“Hever — except in imagination,” said 
the young girl. 

“Fancy!” repeated her companion. 
“But I dare say you’ll go soon, won’t 


you ?” 


62 


“It’s the dream of my life!” said Bessie 
Alden, smiling. 

“ But your sister seems to know a tre- 
mendous lot about London,” Lord Lam- 
beth went on. 

The young girl was silent a moment. 
“ My sister and I are two very different 
persons,” she presently said. “ She has 
been a great deal in Europe. She has 
been in England several times. She has 
known a great many English people.” 

“But you must have known some, too,” 
said Lord Lambeth. 

“ I don’t think that I have ever spoken 
to one before. You are the first Ens:- 
lishman that — to my knowledge — I have 
ever talked with.” 

Bessie Alden made this statement with 
a certain gravity — almost, as it seemed to 
Lord Lambeth, an impressiveness. At- 
tempts at impressiveness always made 
him feel awkward, and he now began to 
laugh and swing his stick. “Ah, you 
would have been sure to know 1” he said. 
And then he added, after an instant, “I’m 
sorry I am not a better specimen.” 

The young girl looked away ; but she 
smiled, laying aside her impressiveness. 
“ You must remember that you are only a 

63 


beginning,” she said. Then she retraced 
her steps, leading the way back to the 
lawn, where they saw Mrs. Westgate come 
towards them with Percy Beaumont still 
at her side. Perhaps I shall go to Eng- 
land next year,” Miss Alden continued ; 
“ I want to, immensely. My sister is 
going to Europe, and she has asked me 
to go with her. If we go, I shall make 
her stay as long as possible in London.” 

“ Ah, you must come in July,” said 
Lord Lambeth. “ That’s the time when 
there is most going on.” 

“I don’t think I can wait till July,” 
the young girl rejoined. “By the first 
of May I shall be very impatient.” They 
had gone farther, and Mrs. Westgate and 
her companion were near them. “Kit- 
ty,” said Miss Alden, “ I have given out 
that we are going to London next May. 
So please to conduct yourself accord- 
ingly.” 

Percy Beaumont wore a somewhat ani- 
mated — even a slightly irritated — air. 
He was by no means so handsome a man 
as his cousin, although in his cousin’s ab- 
sence he might have passed for a striking 
specimen of the tall, muscular, fair-beard- 
ed, clear -eyed Englishman. Just now 

64 


Beaumont’s clear eyes, which were small 
and of a pale gray color, had a rather trou- 
bled light, and, after glancing at Bessie 
Alden while she spoke, he rested them 
upon his kinsman. Mrs. Westgate mean- 
while, with her superfluously pretty gaze, 
looked at every one alike. 

“You had better wait till the time 
comes,” she said to her sister. “Perhaps 
next May you won’t care so much about 
London. Mr. Beaumont and I,” she went 
on, smiling at her companion, “ have had 
a tremendous discussion. We don’t agree 
about anything. It’s perfectly delight- 
ful.” 

“ Oh, I say, Percy !” exclaimed Lord 
Lambeth. 

“I disagree,” said Beaumont, stroking 
down his back hair, “even to the point 
of not thinking it delightful.” 

“ Oh, I say !” cried Lord Lambeth again. 

“ I don’t see anything delightful in 
my disagreeing with Mrs. Westgate,” said 
Percy Beaumont. 

“Well, I do!” Mrs. Westgate declared; 
and she turned to her sister. “ You know 
you have to go to town. The phaeton is 
there. You had better take Lord Lam- 
beth.” 


65 


I 



At this point Percy Beaumont certainly 
looked straight at his kinsman ; he tried 
to catch his eye. But Lord Lambeth 
would not look at him ; his own eyes 
were better occupied. I shall be very 
happy,” cried Bessie Alden. “I am only 
going to some shops. But I will drive 
you about and show you the place.” 

“ An American woman who respects 
herself,” said Mrs. Westgate, turning to 
Beaumont with her bright expos- 
itory air, “ must buy something 
every day of her life. If she can- 
not do it herself, she 
must send 
out some 
member of 
her family 
for the pur- 
pose. So 
Bessie goes 
forth to ful- 
fil my mis- 
sion.” 

The young 
girl had 


walked away, with Lord Lambeth by her 
side, to whom she was talking still ; and 
Percy Beaumont watched them as they 
passed towards the house. “ She fulfils 
her own mission,” he presently said ; “ that 
of being a very attractive young lady.” 

“ I don’t know that I should say very 
attractive,” Mrs. W estgate rejoined. “ She 
is not so much that as she is charming, 
when you really know her. She is very 
shy.” 

‘‘ Oh, indeed !” said Percy Beaumont. 

“Extremely shy,” Mrs. Westgate re- 
peated. “ But she is a dear, good girl ; 
she is a charming species of a girl. She 
is not in the least a flirt ; that isn’t at all 
her line ; she doesn’t know the alphabet 
of that sort of thing. She is very simple, 
very serious. She has lived a great deal 
in Boston, with another sister of mine — 
the eldest of us — who married a Bos- 
tonian. She is very cultivated — not at 
all like me ; I am not in the least cul- 
tivated. She has studied immensely and 
read everything ; she is what they call in 
Boston ‘ thoughtful.’ ” 

“A rum sort of girl for Lambeth to 
get hold of !” his lordship’s kinsman pri- 
vately reflected. 


67 


‘‘I really believe,” Mrs. Westgate con- 
tinued, “ that the most charming girl in 
the world is a Boston superstructure 
upon a New York fondsj or perhaps a 
New York superstructure upon a Boston 
fonds. At any rate, it’s the mixture,” 
said Mrs. Westgate, who continued to 
give Percy Beaumont a great deal of in- 
formation. 

Lord Lambeth got into a little basket 
phaeton with Bessie Alden, and she drove 
him down the long avenue, whose extent 
he had measured on foot a couple of hours 
before, into the ancient town, as it was 
called in that part of the world, of New- 
port. The ancient town was a curious 
affair — a collection of fresh-looking little 
wooden houses, painted white, scattered 
over a hill-side and clustered about a long, 
straight street, paved with enormous cob- 
ble-stones. There were plenty of shops, 
a large proportion of which appeared to 
be those of fruit venders, with piles of 
huge watermelons and pumpkins stacked 
in front of them ; and, drawn up before 
the shops, or bumping about on the cob- 
ble-stones, were innumerable other bas- 
ket-phaetons freighted with ladies of high 
fashion, who greeted each other from 
68 



vehicle to vehicle, and conversed on the 
edge of the pavement in a manner that 
struck Lord Lambeth as demonstrative, 
with a great many “ Oh, my dears,” and 
little, quick exclamations and caresses. 
His companion went into seventeen shops 
— he amused himself with counting them 
— and accumulated at the bottom of the 
phaeton a pile of bundles that hardly 
left the young Englishman a place for 
his feet. As she had no groom nor foot- 
man, he sat in the phaeton to hold the 
ponies, where, although he was not a 
particularly acute observer, he saw much 
to entertain him — especially the ladies 
just mentioned, who wandered up and 
down with the appearance of a kind of 
aimless intentness, as if they were looking 
for something to buy, and who, tripping 
in and out of their vehicles, displayed 
remarkably pretty feet. It all seemed to 
Lord Lambeth very odd and bright and 
gay. Of course, before they got back to 
the villa, he had had a great deal of des- 
ultory conversation with Bessie Alden. 

The young Englishmen spent the whole 
of that day and the whole of many suc- 
cessive days in what the French call the 
intimite of their new friends. They 


agreed that it was extreinelj jolly, that 
they had never known anything more 
agreeable. It is not proposed to narrate 
niinntely the incidents of their sojourn 
on this charming shore ; though if it 
were convenient I might present a rec- 
ord of impressions none the less delec- 
table that they were not exhaustively an- 
alyzed. Many of them still linger in the 
minds of our travellers, attended by a 
train of harmonious imao:es — imao'es of 
brilliant mornings on lawns and piazzas 
that overlooked the sea; of innumerable 
pretty girls ; of infinite lounging and talk- 
ing and laughing and flirting and lunch- 
ing and dining; of universal friendliness 
and frankness ; of occasions on which 
they knew every one and everything, 
and had an extraordinary sense of ease ; 
of drives and rides in the late afternoon 
over gleaming beaches, on long sea-roads 
beneath a sky lighted up by marvellous 
sunsets; of suppers, on the return, infor- 
mal, irregular, agreeable ; of evenings at 
open windows or on the perpetual ve- 
randas, in the summer starlight, above 
the warm Atlantic. The young English- 
men were introduced to everybody, enter- 
tained by everybody, intimate with every- 

70 



talk that he had had, on the second day, 
with Bessie Alden. He had indeed had 
a good deal of talk with her, for she was 
not literally always in conversation with 
Lord Lambeth. He had meditated upon 
Mrs. Westgate’s account of her sister, and 
he discovered for himself that the young 
lady was clever, and appeared to have 
read a great deal. She seemed very nice, 
though he could not make out that, as 
Mrs. Westgate had said, she was shy. If 
she was shy, she carried it olf very 'well. 

“Mr. Beaumont,” she had said, “please 
tell me something about Lord Lambeth’s 
family. How would you say it in Eng- 
land — his position ?” 

“His position?” Percy Beaumont re- 
peated. 

“ His rank, or whatever you call it. 
Unfortunately, we haven’t got a ‘peer- 
age,’ like the people in Thackeray.” 

“ That’s a great pity,” said Beaumont. 
“ You would find it all set forth there so 
much better than I can do it.” 

“ He is a peer, then ?” 

“ Oh yes, he is a peer.” 

“ And has he any other title than Lord 
Lambeth ?” 

“His title is the Marquis of Lambeth,” 

72 



said Beaumont; and then he was silent. 
Bessie Alden appeared to be looking at 
him with interest. “He is the son of 
the Duke of Bayswater,” he added, pres- 
ently. 

“ The eldest son V’ 

“ The only son.” 

“ And are his parents living 

“ Oh yes ; if his father were not living 
he would be a duke.” 

“ So that when his father dies,” pursued 
Bessie Alden, with more simplicity than 
might have been expected in a clever girl, 
“he will become Duke of Bayswater 

“ Of course,” said Percy Beaumont. 
“ But his father is in excellent health.” 

“ And his mother ?” 

Beaumont smiled a little. “ The duch- 
ess is uncommonly robust.” 

“ And has he any sisters ?” 

“Yes, there are two.” 

“ And what are they called ?” 

“ One of them is married. She is the 
Countess of Pimlico.” 

“And the other ?” 

“ The other is unmarried ; she is plain 
Lady Julia.” 

Bessie Alden looked at him a moment. 
“ Is she very plain ?” 



Beaumont began to laugh again. “ You 
would not find her so handsome as her 
brother,” he said ; and it was after this 
that he attempted to dissuade the heir of 
the Duke of Bajs water from accepting 
Mrs. Westgate’s invitation. ‘‘Depend 
upon it,” he said, “ that girl means to try 
for you.” 

“ It seems to me you are doing your 
best to make a fool of me,” the modest 
young nobleman answered. 

“She has been asking me,” said Beau- 
mont, “all about your people and your 
possessions.” 

“ 1 am sure it is very good of her !” 
Lord Lambeth rejoined. 

“Well, then,” observed his companion, 
“if you go, you go with your eyes open.” 

“D — n my eyes!” exclaimed Lord Lam- 
beth. “ If one is to be a dozen times a 
day at the house, it is a great deal more 
convenient to sleep there. I am sick 
of travelling up and down this beastly 
avenue.” 

Since he had determined to go, Percy 
Beaumont would, of course, have been 
very sorry to allow him to go alone ; he 
was a man of conscience, and he remem- 
bered his promise to the duchess. It 

74 


was obviously the iriemory of this prom- 
ise that made him say to his companion 
a couple of days later that he rather won- 
dered he should be so fond of that girl. 

‘‘ In the first place, how do you know 
how fond I am of her?” asked Lord Lam- 
beth. ‘‘And, in the second place, why 
shouldn’t I be fond of her?” 

“ 1 shouldn’t think she would be in 
your line.” 

“What do you call my ‘line?’ You 
don’t set her down as ‘ fast ?’ ” 

‘•Exactly so. Mrs. Westgate tells me 
that there is no such thing as the ‘fast 
girl’ in America that it’s an English 
invention, and that the term has no mean- 
ing here.” 

“ All the better. It’s an animal I detest.” 

“You prefer a blue-stocking.” 

“ Is that what you call Miss Alden ?” 

“ Her sister tells me,” said Percy Beau- 
mont, “ that she is tremendously literary.” 

“I don’t know anything about that. 
She is certainly very clever.” 

“ Well,” said Beaumont, “ I should have 
supposed you would have found that sort 
of thing awfully slow.” 

“ In point of fact,” Lord Lambeth re- 
joined, “ I find it uncommonly lively.” 

75 


After this Percy Beaumont held his 
tongue ; but on August 10th he wrote 
to the Duchess of Bays water. He was, 
as I have said, a man of conscience, and 
he had a strong, incorruptible sense of 
the proprieties of life. His kinsman, 
meanwhile, was having a great deal of 
talk with Bessie Alden — on the red sea- 
rocks beyond the lawn ; in the course of 
long island rides, with a slow return in 
the glowing twilight ; on the deep veran- 
da late in the evening. Lord Lambeth, 
who had stayed at many houses, had never 
stayed at a house in which it was possible 
for a young man to converse so frequently 
with a young lady. This young lady no 
longer applied to Percy Beaumont for in- 
formation concerning his lordship. She 
addressed herself directly to the young 
nobleman. She asked him a great many 
questions, some of which bored him a 
little ; for he took no pleasure in talking 
about himself. 

“ Lord Lambeth,” said Bessie Alden, 
“ are you a hereditary legislator ?” 

“ Oh, I say !” cried Lord Lambeth, “don’t 
make me call myself such names as that.” 

“ But you are a member of Parliament,” 
said the young girl. 

76 


“I don’t like the sound of that, either.” 

“ Don’t you sit in the House of Lords ?” 
Bessie Alden went on. 

“ Yery seldom,” said Lord Lambeth. 

‘‘Is it an important position?” she 
asked. 

“ Oh dear no,” said Lord Lambeth. 

“ I should think it would be very 
grand,” said Bessie Alden, “to possess, 
simply by an accident of birth, the right 
to make laws for a great nation.” 

“Ah, but one doesn’t make laws. It’s 
a great humbug.” 

“ I don’t believe that,” the young girl 
declared. “ It must be a great privilege, 
and I should think that if one thought of 
it in the right way — from a high point 
of view — it would be very inspiring.” 

“ The less one thinks of it the better,” 
Lord Lambeth affirmed. 

“ I think it’s tremendous,” said Bessie 
Alden ; and on another occasion she asked 
him if he had any tenantry. Hereupon 
it was that, as I have said, he was a little 
bored. 

“Do you want to buy up their leases?” 
he asked. 

“Well, have you got any livings ?” she 
demanded. 


77 


“ Oh, I say !” he cried. “ Have yon 
got a clergyman that is looking out?” 
But she made him tell her that he had a 
castle ; he confessed to but one. It was 
the place in which he had been born and 
brought up, and, as he had an old-time 
liking for it, he was beguiled into de- 
scribing it a little, and saying it was really 
very jolly. Bessie Alden listened with 
great interest, and declared that she would 
give the world to see such a place. 
Whereupon — “It would be awfully kind 
of you to come and stay there,” said Lord 
Lambeth. He took a vague satisfaction 
in the circumstance that Percy Beaumont 
had not heard him make the remark I 
have just recorded. 

Mr. Westgate all this time had not, as 
they said at Newport, “come on.” His 
wife more than once announced that she 
expected him on the morrow ; but on 
the morrow she wandered about a little, 
with a telegram in her jewelled fingers, 
declaring it was very tiresome that his 
business detained him in New York ; that 
he could only hope the Englishmen were 


liaving a good time. “ I must say,” said 
Mrs. Westgate, “ that it is no thanks to 
him if you are.” And she went on to 
explain, wliile she continued that slow- 
paced promenade which enabled her well- 
adjusted skirts to display themselves so 
advantageously, that unfortunately in 
America there was no leisure class. It 
was Lord Lambeth’s theory, freely pro- 
pounded when the young men were to- 
gether, that Percy Beaumont was having 
a very good time with Mrs. Westgate, 
and that, under the pretext of meeting 
for the purpose of animated discussion, 
they were indulging in practices that 
imparted a shade of hypocrisy to the 
lady’s regret for her husband’s absence. 

“I assure you we are always discussing 
and differing,” said Percy Beaumont. 
“ She is awfully argumentative. Ameri- 
can ladies certainly don’t mind contra- 
dicting you. Upon my word, I don’t 
think I was ever treated so by a woman 
before. She’s so devilish positive.” 

Mrs. Westgate’s positive quality, how- 
ever, evidently had its attractions, for 
Beaumont was constantly at his hostess’s 
side. He detached himself one day to 
the extent of going to Hew York to talk 

79 


over the Tennessee Central with Mr. 
Westgate; but he was absent only forty- 
eight hours, during which, with Mr. West- 
gate’s assistance, he completely settled 
this piece of business. “ They certainly 
do things quickly in ]^ew York,” he ob- 
served to his cousin ; and he added that 
Mr. Westgate had seemed very uneasy 
lest his wife should miss her visitor — he 
had been in such an awful hurry to send 
him back to her. “ I’m afraid you’ll 
never come up to an American husband, 
if that’s what the wives expect,” he said 
to Lord Lambeth. 

Mrs. Westgate, however, was not to en- 
joy much longer the entertainment with 
which an indulgent husband had desired 
to keep her provided. On August 21st 
Lord Lambeth received a telegram from 
his mother, requesting him to return im- 
mediately to England; his father had 
been taken ill, and it was his filial duty 
to come to him. 

The young Englishman was visibly an- 
noyed. ‘‘ What the deuce does it mean ?” 
he asked of his kinsman. “ What am I 
to do?” 

Percy Beaumont was annoyed as well ; 
he had deemed it his duty, as I have nar- 
80 


rated, to write to the duchess, but he had 
not expected that this distinguished wom- 
an would act so promptly upon his hint. 
“It means,” he said, “ that your father is 
laid up. I don’t suppose it’s anything 
serious ; but you have no option. Take 
the first steamer ; but don’t be alarmed.” 

Lord Lambeth made his farewells ; but 
the few last words that he exchanged 
with Bessie Alden are the only ones that 
jiave a place in our record. “ Of course 
I needn't assure you,” he said, “that if 
you should come to England next year, I 
expect to be the first person that you 
inform of it.” 

Bessie Alden looked at him a little and 
she smiled. “ Oh, if we come to Lon- 
don,” she answered, “ I should think you 
would hear of it.” 

Percy Beaumont returned with his 
cousin, and his sense of duty compelled 
him, one windless afternoon, in mid-At- 
lantic, to say to Lord Lambeth that he 
suspected that the duchess’s telegram 
was in part the result of something he 
himself had written to her. “ I wrote to 
her — as I explicitly notified you I had 
promised to do — that you were extremely 
interested in a little American girl.” 


Lord Lambeth was extremely angry, 
and he indulged for some moments in 
the simple language of indignation. But 
I have said that he was a reasonable 
young man, and 1 can give no better 
proof of it than the fact that he remarked 
to his companion at the end of half an 
hour, “You w^ere quite right, after all. 
I am very much interested in her. Only, 
to be fair,” he added, “you should have 
told my mother also that she is not — 
seriously — interested in me.” 

Percy Beaumont gave a little laugh. 
“ There is nothing so charming as mod- 
esty in a young man in your position. 
That speech is a capital proof that you 
are sweet on her.” 

“She is not interested — she is not!” 
Lord Lambeth repeated. 

“My dear fellow,” said his companion, 
“ you are very far gone.’* 



N point of fact, as Percy 
Beaumont would have said, Mrs. 
Westgate disembarked on May 
IStli on tlie British coast. She 
was accompanied by her sister, 
but she was not attended by any 
other member of her family. 
To the deprivation of her husband’s so- 
ciety Mrs. Westgate was, however, habitu- 
ated ; she had made half a dozen journeys 
to Europe without him, and she now ac- 
counted for his absence, to interrogative 
friends on this side of the Atlantic, by al- 
lusion to the regrettable but conspicuous 
fact that in America there was no leisure 
class. The two ladies came up to London 
and alighted at Jones’s Hotel, where Mrs. 
Westgate, who had made on former oc- 
casions the most agreeable impression at 
this establishment, received an ohsequi- 


ous greeting. Bessie Alden had felt much 
excited about coming to England ; she 
had expected the “ associations ” would 
be very charming, that it would be an 
infinite pleasure to rest her eyes upon 
the things she had read about in tlie poets 
and historians. She was very fond of the 
poets and historians, of the picturesque, 
of the past, of retrospect, of mementos 
and reverberations of greatness ; so that 
on coming into the great English world, 
where strangeness and familiarity would 
go hand in hand, she was prepared for 
a multitude of fresh emotions. They 
began very promptly — these tender, fiut- 
tering sensations ; they began with the 
sight of the beautiful English landscape, 
whose dark richness was quickened and 
brightened by the season ; with the car- 
peted fields and flowering hedge-rows, as 
she looked at them from the window of 
the train ; with the spires of the rural 
churches peeping above the rook-haunted 
tree -tops; with the oak-studded parks, 
the ancient homes, the cloudy light, the 
speech, the manners, the thousand differ- 
ences. Mrs. Westgate’s impressions had, 
of course, much less novelty and keen- 
ness, and she gave but a wandering atten- 

84 


tion to her sister’s ejaculations and rhap- 
sodies. 

You know my enjoyment of England 
is not so intellectual as Bessie’s,” she said 
to several of her friends in the course of 
her visit to this country. “And yet if it 
is not intellectual, I can’t say it is phys- 
ical. I don’t think I can quite say what 
it is — my enjoyment of England.” When 
once it was settled that the two ladies 
should come abroad and should spend a 
few weeks in England on their way to 
the Continent, they of course exchanged 
a good many allusions to their London 
acquaintance. 

“ It will certainly be much nicer hav- 
ing friends there,” Bessie Alden had said 
one day, as she sat on the sunny deck of 
the steamer at her sister’s feet, on a large 
blue rug. 

“Whom do you mean by friends?” 
Mrs. Westgate asked. 

“All those English gentlemen whom 
you have known and entertained. Cap- 
tain Littledale, for instance. And Lord 
Lambeth and Mr. Beaumont,” added Bes- 
sie Alden. 

“ Do you expect them to give us a 
very grand reception ?” 

85 


Bessie reflected a moment; she was ad- 
dicted, as we know, to reflection. “ Well, 
yes.” 

“My poor, sweet child !” murmured her 
sister. 

“ What have I said that is so silly ?” 
asked Bessie. 

“You are a little too simple; just a 
little. It is very becoming, but it pleases 
people at your expense.” 

“ I am certainly too simple to under- 
stand you,” said Bessie. 

“ Shall I tell you a story ?” asked her 
sister. 

“ If you would be so good. That is 
what they do to amuse simple people.” 

Mrs. Westgate consulted her memory, 
while her companion sat gazing at the 
shining sea. “ Did you ever hear of the 
Duke of Green-Erin?” 

“ I think nqt,” said Bessie. 

“ AYell, it’s no matter,” her sister went 
on. 

“It’s a proof of my simplicity.” 

“ My story is meant to illustrate that of 
some other people,” said Mrs. West- 
V gate. “The Duke of Green-Erin is 
what tliey call in England a great 
swell, and some five years ago he came 


to America. He spent most of his time in 
Hew York, and in Hew York he spent his 
days and his nights at the Butterworths’. 
Yon have heard, at least, of the Butter- 
worths. Bien. They did everything in 
the world for him — they turned them- 
selves inside out. They gave him a doz- 
en dinner-parties and balls, and were the 
means of his being invited to fifty more. 
At first he used to come into Mrs. Butter- 
worth’s box at the opera in a tweed trav. 
elling suit ; but some one stopped that. 
At any rate, he had a beautiful time, and 
they parted the best friends in the world. 
Two years elapse, and the Butter worths 
come abroad and go to London. The 
first thing they see in all the papers — in 
England those things are in the most 
prominent place — is that the Duke of 
Green-Erin has arrived in town for the 
season. They wait a little, and then Mr. 
Butterworth — as polite as ever — goes 
and leaves a card. They wait a little 
more ; the visit is not returned ; they 
wait three weeks — silence de mort — the 
duke gives no sign. The Butterworths 
see a lot of other people, put down the 
Duke of Green-Erin as a rude, ungrate- 
ful man, and forget all about him. One 

87 


fine day they go to the Ascot races, and 
there they meet him face to face. He 
stares a moment, and then comes np to 
Mr. Butterworth, taking something from 
his pocket-book — something which proves 
to be a bank-note. ‘ I’m glad to see you, 
Mr. Butterworth,’ he says, ‘ so that I can 
pay you that £10 I lost to you in Hew 
York. I saw the other day you remem- 
bered our bet; here are the £10, Mr. 
Butterworth. Good-bye, Mr. Butter- 
worth.’ And off he goes, and that’s the 
last they see of the Duke of Green-Erin.” 

“ Is that your story ?” asked Bessie 
Alden. 

‘‘Don’t you think it’s interesting?” her 
sister replied. 

“I don’t believe it,” said the young girl. 

“Ah,” cried Mrs. Westgate, “ you are 
not so simple, after all! Believe it or 
not, as you please ; there is no smoke 
without fire.” 

“ Is that the way,” asked Bessie, after 
a moment, “ that you expect your friends 
to treat you ?” 

“ I defy them to treat me very ill, be- 
cause I shall not give them the oppor- 
tunity. With the best will in the world, 
in that case they can’t be very offensive.” 


Bessie Alden was silent a moment. “I 
don’t see what makes you talk that way,” 
she said. “ The English are a great peo- 
ple.” 

“Exactly; and that is just the way 
they have grown great — by dropping you 
when you have ceased to be useful. Peo- 
ple say they are not clever* but I think 
they are very clever.” 

“You know you have liked them — all 
the Englishmen you have seen,” said 
Bessie. 

“ They Iiave liked me,” her sister re- 
joined ; “ it would be more correct to 
say that. And, of course, one likes that.” 

Bessie Alden resumed for some mo- 
ments her studies in sea-green. “Well,” 
she said, “ whether they like me or not, I 
mean to like them. And, happily,” she 
added, “ Lord Lambeth does not owe me 
£10.” 

During the first few days after their 
arrival at Jones’s Hotel our charming 
Americans were much occupied with 
what they would have called looking 
about them. They found occasion to 
make a large number of purchases, and 
their opportunities for conversation were 
such only as were offered by the defer- 


ential London shopmen. Bessie Alden, 
even in driving from tlie station, took an 
immense fancy to the British metropolis, 
and at the idsk of exhibiting her as a 
young woman of vulgar tastes, it must 
be recorded that for a considerable period 
she desired no higher pleasure than to 
drive about the crowded streets in a han- 
som cab. To her attentive eyes they were 
full of a strange, picturesque life, and it 
is at least beneath the dignity of our his- 
toric muse to enumerate the trivial ob- 
jects and incidents which this simple 
young lady from Boston found so enter- 
taining. It may be freely mentioned, 
however, that whenever, after a round of 
visits in Bond Street and Eegent Street, 
she was about to return with her sister 
to Jones’s Hotel, she made an earnest 
request that they should be driven home 
by way of Westminster Abbey. She had 
begun by asking whether it would not 
be possible to take in the Tower on the 
way to their lodgings ; but it happened 
that at a more primitive stage of her 
culture Mrs. Westgate had paid a visit 
to this venerable monument, which she 
spoke of ever afterwards vaguely as a 
dreadful disappointment; so that she ex- 


pressed the liveliest disapproval of any 
attempt to combine historical researches 
with the purchase of hair -brushes and 
note-paper. The most she would consent 
to do in this line was to spend half an 
hour at Madame Tussaud’s, where she saw 
several dusty wax effigies of members of 
the royal family. She told Bessie that 
if slie wished to go to the Tower she 
must get some one else to take her. 
Bessie expressed hereupon an earnest dis- 
position to go alone ; but upon this pro- 
posal as well, Mrs. Westgate sprinkled 
cold water. 

“ Remember,” she said, that you are 
not in your innocent little Boston. It is 
not a question of walking up and down 
Beacon Street.” Then she went on to 
explain that there were two classes of 
American girls in Europe — those that 
walked about alone and those that did 
not. ‘‘ You happen to belong, my dear,” 
she said to her sister, ‘‘ to the class that 
does not.” 

“ It is only,” answered Bessie, laugh- 
ing, ‘^because you happen to prevent 
me.” And she devoted much private 
meditation to this question of effecting a 
visit to the Tower of London. 

91 


Suddenly it seemed as if the problem 
might be solved ; the two ladies at Jones’s 
Hotel received a visit from Willie Wood- 
ley. Such was the social appellation of 
a young American who had sailed from 
Hew York a few days after their own 
departure, and who, having the privilege 
of intimacy with them in that city, had 
lost no time, on his arrival in London, in 
coming to pay them his respects. He 
had, in fact, gone to see them directly 
after going to see his tailor, than which 
there can be no greater exhibition of 
promptitude on the part of a young 
American who had just alighted at the 
Charing Cross Hotel. He was a slim, 
pale youth, of the most amiable dispo- 
sition, famous for the skill with which 
he led the ‘‘German” in Hew York. 
Indeed, by the young ladies who habitu- 
ally figured in this Terpsichorean revel 
he was believed to be “ the best dancer 
in the world it was in these terms that 
he was always spoken of, and that his 
identity was indicated. He was the gen- 
tlest, softest young man it was possible 
to meet ; he was beautifully dressed — 
“in the English style” — and he knew 
an immense deal about London. He 



had been at Newport during the previ- 
ous summer, at the time of our young 
Englishmen’s visit, and he took extreme 
pleasure in the society of Bessie Alden, 
w’hom he always addressed as ‘‘ Miss Bes- 
sie.” She immediately arranged with 
him, in the presence of her sister, that he 
should conduct her to the scene of Anne 
Boleyn’s execution. 

“ You may do as you please,” said Mrs. 
Westgate. “ Only — if you desire the in- 
formation — it is not the custom here for 
young ladies to knock about London with 
young men.” 

Miss Bessie has w^altzed with me 
so often,” observed Willie Woodley; 
‘‘she can surely go out with me in a 
hansom !” 

“ I consider waltzing,” said Mrs. 
Westgate, “the most innocent pleasure 
of our time.” 

“It’s a compliment to our time!” 
exclaimed the young man, with a little 
laugh in spite of himself. 

“I don’t see why I should regard 
what is done here,” said Bessie Alden. 

“ Why should I suffer the restrictions 
of a society of which I enjoy none of 
the privileges?” 

93 


“ That’s very good — very good,” mur- 
mured Willie Woodley. 

“ Oh, go to the Tower, and feel the 
axe, if you like,” said Mrs. Westgate. “ I 
consent to your going with Mr. Woodley ; 
but I should not let you go with an Eng- 
lishman.” 

“Miss Bessie wouldn’t care to go with 
an Englishman !” Mr. Woodley declared, 
with a faint asperity tliat was, perhaps, 
not unnatural in a young man, who, dress- 
ing in the manner that I have indicated, 
and knowing a great deal, as I have said, 
about London, saw no reason for drawing 
these sharp distinctions. He agreed upon 
a day with Miss Bessie — a day of that 
same week. 

An ingenious mind might, perhaps, 
trace a connection between the young 
girl’s allusion to her destitution of social 
privileges and a question she asked on 
the morrow, as she sat with her sister at 
lunch. 

“Don’t you mean to write to — to any 
one?” said Bessie. 

“ I wrote this morning to Captain Lit- 
tledale,” Mrs. Westgate replied. 

“But Mr. Woodley said that Captain 
Littledale had gone to India.” 

94 


He said he thought he had lieard so ; 
he knew notliing about it.” 

For a moment Bessie Alden said notli- 
ingmore; then, at last, “And don’t you 
intend to write to — to Mr. Beaumont?” 
she inquired. 

“You mean to Lord Larnbetli,” said 
her sister. 

“ I said Mr. Beaumont, because he was 
so good a friend of yours.” 

Mrs. Westgate looked at the young 
girl with sisterly candor. “ I don’t care 
two straws for Mr. Beaumont.” 

“ You were certainly very nice to him.” 

“ I am nice to every one,” said Mrs. 
AY estgate, si m ply. 

“ To every one but me,” rejoined 
Bessie, smiling. 

Her sister continued to look at her; 
then, at last, “ Are you in love with Lord 
Lambeth?” she asked. 

The young girl stared a moment, and 
the question was apparently too humor- 
ous even to make her blush. “ Not that 
I know of,” slie answered. 


‘‘ Because, if you are,’’ Mrs. W estgate 
went on, ‘‘ I shall certainly not send for 
him.” 

“ That proves what I said,” declared 
Bessie, smiling — that you are not nice 
to me.” 

“ It would be a poor service, my dear 
child,” said her sister. 

“In what sense? There is nothing 
against Lord Lambeth that I know of.” 

Mrs. Westgate was silent a moment. 
“You are in love wdth him, then?” 

Bessie stared again ; but this time she 
blushed a little. “ Ah ! if you won’t be 
serious,” she answered, “ we will not men- 
tion him again.” 

For some moments Lord Lambeth was 
not mentioned again, and it was Mrs. 
Westgate who, at the end of this period, 
reverted to him. “ Of course I will let 
him know we are here, because I think 
he would be hurt — justly enough — if we 
should go away without seeing him. It 
is fair to give him a chance to come and 
thank me for the kindness we showed 
him. But I don’t want to seem eager.” 

“ Neither do I,” said Bessie, with a 
little laugh. 

“ Though I confess,” added her sister. 


‘‘that I am curious to see how he will 
behave.” 

‘‘ He behaved very well at Newport.” 

“Newport is not London. At New- 
port he could do as he liked ; but here it 
is another affair. He has to have an eye 
to consequences.” 

“ If he had more freedom, then, at 
Newport,” argued Bessie, “ it is the more 
to his credit that he behaved well ; and if 
he has to be so careful here, it is possible 
he will behave even better.” 

“Better — better,” repeated her sister. 
“ My dear child, what is your point of 
view ?” 

“How do you mean — my point of 
view ?” 

“ Don’t you care for Lord Lambeth — a 
little?” 

This time Bessie Alden was displeased ; 
she slowly got up from the table, turning 
her face away from her sister. “ You 
will oblige me by not talking so,” she 
said. 

Mrs. Westgate sat watching her for 
some moments as she moved slowly about 
the room and went and stood at the win- 
dow. “I will write to him this after- 
noon,” she said at last. 

97 


“Do as you please !” Bessie answered ; 
and presently she turned round. “I am 
not afraid to say that I like Lord Lam- 
beth. I like him very much.” 

“He is not clever,” Mrs. AVestgate de- 
clared. 

“Well, there have been clever people 
whom I have disliked,” said Bessie Alden ; 
“ so that I suppose I may like a stupid 
one. Besides, Lord Lambeth is not 
stupid.” 

“ Not so stupid as he looks !” exclaimed 
her sister, smiling. 

“ If I were in love with Lord Lambeth, 
as you said just now, it would be bad 
policy on your part to abuse him.” 

“My dear child, don’t give me lessons 
in policy!” cried Mrs. AVestgate. “The 
policy I mean to follow is very deep.” 

The young girl began to walk about 
the room again ; then she stopped before 
her sister. “ I have never heard in the 
course of five minutes,” she said, “so 
many hints and innuendoes. I wish you 
would tell me in plain English what you 
mean.” 

“ I mean that you may be much an- 
noyed.” 

“ That is still only a hint,” said Bessie. 

98 


Her sister looked at her, hesitating an 
instant. ‘‘ It will be said of you that you 
have come after Lord Lambeth — that you 
followed him.” 

Bessie Alden threw back her pretty 
head like a startled hind, and a look flashed 
into her face that made Mrs. Westgate 
rise from her chair. “Who says such 
things as that?” she demanded. 

“ People here.” 

“ I don’t believe it,” said Bessie. 

“You have a very convenient faculty 
of doubt. But my policy wdll be, as I 
say, very deep. 1 shall leave you to And 
out this kind of thing for yourself.” 

Bessie fixed her eyes upon her sister, 
and Mrs. Westgate thought for a mo- 
ment there were tears in them. “Do 
they talk that wa^^ here ?” she asked. 

“You will see. I shall leave you 
alone.” 

“Don’t leave me alone,” said Bessie Al- 
den. “ Take me away.” 

“ No ; I want to see what you make of 
it,” her sister continued. 

“ I don’t understand.” 

“ You will understand after Lord Lam- 
beth has come,” said Mrs. Westgate, with 
a little laugh. 

LOf C. 


99 


The two ladies had arranged tliat on 
this afternoon Willie Woodley should go 
with them to Hyde Park, where Bessie 
Alden expected to derive much entertain- 
ment from sitting on a little green chair, 
under the great trees, beside Potten Pow. 
The want of a suitable escort had hitherto 
rendered this pleasure inaccessible ; but 
no escort now, for such an expedition, 
could have been more suitable than their 
devoted young countryman, whose mis- 
sion in life, it might almost be said, was 
to find chairs for ladies, and who appeared 
on the stroke of half past five with a 
white camellia in his button-hole. 

“ I have written to Lord Lambeth, my 
dear,” said Mrs. AVestgate to her sister, 
on coming into the room where Bessie 
Alden, drawing on her long gray gloves, 
was entertaining their visitor. 

Bessie said nothing, but AVillie Wood- 
ley exclaimed that his lordship was in 
town ; he had seen his name in the Morn- 
ing Post. 

“Do you read the Morning Postf'* 
asked Mrs. AV^estgate. 

“Oh yes ; it’s great fun,” Willie AVood- 
ley affirmed. 

“I want so to see it,” said Bes- 


sie ; “ there is so much about it in Thack- 
eray.” 

“ I will send it to you every morning,” 
said Willie Woodley. 

He found them what Bessie Alden 
thought excellent places, under the great 
trees, beside the famous avenue whose 
humors had been made familiar to the 
young girl’s childhood by the pictures in 
Punch, The day was bright and warm, 
and the crowd of riders and spectators, 
and the great procession of carriages, 
were proportionately dense and brilliant. 
The scene bore the stamp of the London 
Season at its height, and Bessie Alden 
found more entertainment in it than she 
was able to express to her companions. 
She sat silent, under her parasol, and her 
imagination, according to its wont, let it- 
self loose into the great changing assem- 
blage of striking and suggestive figures. 
They stirred up a host of old impressions 
and preconceptions, and she found her- 
self fitting a history to this person and a 
theory to that, and making a place for 
them all in her little private museum of 
types. But if she said little, her sister on 
one side and Willie Woodley on the other 

expressed themselves in lively alternation. 

101 


“Look at that green dress with blue 
flounces,” said Mrs. Westgate. Quelle 
toilette /” 

“ That’s the Marquis of Blackborough,” 
said the young man — “the one in the 
wliite coat. I heard him speak the other 
night in the House of Lords ; it was some- 
thing about ramrods ; he called them 
wamwods. He’s an awful swell.” 

“Did you ever see anything like the 
way they are pinned back?” Mrs. West- 
gate resumed. “ They never know where 
to stop.” 

“ They do nothing but stop,” said 
Willie Woodley. “It prevents them 
from walking. Here comes a great ce- 
lebrity, Lady Beatrice Bellevue. She’s 
awfully fast ; see what little steps she 
takes.” 

“ Well, my dear,” Mrs. Westgate pur- 
sued, “ I hope you are getting some ideas 
for your couturiere 

“ I am getting plenty of ideas,” said 
Bessie, “ but I don’t know that my cou- 
turiere would appreciate them.” 

Willie Woodley presently perceived a 
friend on horseback, who drove up beside 
the barrier of the Kow and beckoned to 
him. He went forward, and the crowd 
102 



of pedestrians closed about him, so that 
for some ten minutes he was hidden from 
sight. At last he reappeared, bringing 
a gentleman with him — a gentleman 
whom Bessie at first supposed to be his 
friend dismounted. But at a second 
glance she found herself looking at Lord 
Lambeth, who was shaking hands with 
her sister. 

“ I found him over there,” said 
Willie Woodley, 

‘‘and I told him you 
were here.” 

And then Lord 
Lambeth, touching 
his hat a little, shook 
hands with Bessie. 

“Fancy your being 
here!” he said. He 
was blushing and 
smiling; he look- 
ed very hand- 
some, and he had 
a kind of splen- 
dor that he had not had in America. Bes- 
sie Alden’s imagination, as we know, was 
just then in exercise; so that the tall 
young Englishman, as he stood there look- 
ing down at her, had the benefit of it. 



“ He is handsomer and more splendid 
than anything I liave ever seen,” she said 
to herself. And then she remembered 
that lie was a marquis, and she thouglit he 
looked like a marquis. 

“I say, you know,” he cried, ‘‘you 
ought to have let a man know you were 
here !” 

“ I wrote to you an hour ago,” said 
Mrs. Westgate. 

“ Doesn’t all the world know it ?” asked 
Bessie, smiling. 

“ I assure you I didn’t know it !” cried 
Lord Lambeth. “ Upon my honor, I 
hadn’t heard of it. Ask Woodley, now; 
had I, Woodley?” 

“Well, T think you are rather a hum- 
bug,” said Willie Woodley. 

“ You don’t believe that — do you. Miss 
Alden?” asked his lordship. “You don’t 
believe I’m a humbug, eh?” 

“ No,” said Bessie, “ I don’t.” 

“ You are too tall to stand up. Lord Lam- 
beth,” Mrs. Westgate observed. “You 
are only tolerable when you sit down. 
Be so good as to get a chair.” 

He found a chair and placed it side- 
wise, close to the two ladies. “ If I 
hadn’t met Woodley I should never have 

104 



found you,” he went on. “ Should I, 
Woodley ?” 

“Well, I guess not,” said the young 
American. 

“ Not even with my letter ?” asked Mrs. 
W estgate. 

“ Ah, well, I haven’t got your letter 
yet ; I suppose I shall get it this even- 
ing. It w^as awfully kind of you to 
write.” 

“So I said to Bessie,” observed Mrs. 
W estgate. 

“ Did she say so. Miss Alden ?” Lord 
Lambeth inquired. “I dare say you 
have been here a month.” 

“We have been here three,” said Mrs. 
Westgate. 

“ Ilave you been here three 
months ?” the young man 
asked again of Bessie. 

“ It seems a long time,” 

Bessie answered. 

“ I say, after that you had 
better not call me a 
humbug !” cried Lord 
Lambeth. “ I have 
only been in town 
three weeks; but you 
must have been ■ hid- 


ing away ; I haven’t seen you any- 
where.” 

“ Where should you have seen us — 
where should we have gone ?” asked Mrs. 
Westgate. 

‘‘You should have gone to Hurling- 
ham,” said Woodley. 

“ No ; let Lord Lambeth tell us,” Mrs. 
Westgate insisted. 

“ There are plenty of places to go to,” 
said Lord Lambeth ; “ each one stupider 
than the other. I mean people’s houses ; 
they send you cards.” 

“No one has sent us cards,” said Bessie. 

“ We are very quiet,” her sister de- 
clared. “ We are here as travellers.” 

“ We have been to Madame Tussaud’s,” 
Bessie pursued. 

“ Oh, I say !” cried Lord Lambeth. 

“ We thought we should find your im- 
age there,” said Mrs. Westgate — “yours 
and Mr. Beaumont’s.” 

“ In the Chamber of Horrors ?” laughed 
the young man. 

“It did duty very well for a party,” 
said Mrs. Westgate. “All the women 
were decolletees, and many of the figures 
looked as if they could speak if they 
tried.” 


106 


“Upon my word,” Lord Lambeth re- 
joined, “you see people at London parties 
that look as if they couldn’t speak if they 
tried.” 

“ Do you think Mr. Woodley could find 
us Mr. Beaumont?” asked Mrs. Westgate. 

Lord Lambeth stared and looked round 
him. “ I dare say he could. Beaumont 
often comes here. Don’t you think you 
could find him, Woodley? Make a dive 
into the crowd.” 

“ Thank you ; I have had enough div- 
ing,” said Willie Woodley. “I will wait 
till Mr. Beaumont comes to the surface.” 

“ I will bring him to see you,” said 
Lord Lambeth ; “ where are you stay- 
ing?” 

“ You will find the address in my let- 
ter — Jones’s Hotel.” 

“ Oh, one of those places just out of 
Piccadilly ? Beastly hole, isn’t it ?” Lord 
Lambeth inquired. 

“I believe it’s the best hotel in London,” 
said Mrs. Westgate. 

“ But they give you awful rubbish to 
eat, don’t they ?” his lordship went on. 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Westgate. 

“ I always feel so sorry for the people 
that come up to town and go to live in 

107 


those places,” continued the young man. 
‘‘ They eat nothing but filth.” 

‘‘ Oh, I say !” cried Willie Woodley. 

‘WYell, how do you like London, Miss 
Alden ?” Lord Lambeth asked, unper- 
turbed by this ejaculation. 

“ I think it’s grand,” said Bessie Alden. 

‘‘My sister likes it, in spite of the 
‘filth!’” Mrs. Westgate exclaimed. 

“ I hope you are going to stay a long 
time.” 

“ As long as I can,” said Bessie. 

“And where is Mr. Westgate?” asked 
Lord Lambeth of this gentleman’s wife. 

“ He’s where he always is — in that tire- 
some ]Yew York.” 

“ He must be tremendously clever,” 
said the young man. 

“ I suppose he is,” said Mrs. Westgate. 

Lord Lambeth sat for nearly an hour 
with his American friends ; but it is not 
our purpose to relate their conversation in 
full. He addressed a great many remarks 
to Bessie Alden, and finally turned tow- 
ards her altogether, while Willie Wood- 
ley entertained Mrs. Westgate. Bessie 
herself said very little ; she was on her 
guard, thinking of what her sister had said 

to her at lunch. Little by little, however, 
108 


she intersted herself in Lord Lambeth 
again, as slie had done at Newport ; only 
it seemed to her that here he might be- 
come more interesting. He would be an 
unconscious part of tlie antiquity, the im- 
pressiveness, the picturesqueness, of Eng- 
land ; and poor Bessie Alden, like many 
a Yankee maiden, was terribly at the 
mercy of picturesqueness. 

“ I have often wished I were at New- 
port again,” said tlie young man. “Tliose 
days I spent at your sister’s were awfully 
jolly.” 

“ We enjoyed them very ihuch ; I hope 
your father is better.” 

“ Oh dear, yes. AYhen I got to Eng- 
land he was out grouse-shooting. It was 
what you call in America a gigantic fraud. 
My mother had got nervous. My three 
weeks at Newport seemed like a happy 
dream.” 

America certainly is very different 
from England,” said Bessie. 

“ I hope you like England better, eh ?” 
Lord Lambeth rejoined, almost persua- 
sively. 

‘‘ No Englishman can ask that seriously 
of a person of another country.” 

Her companion looked at her for a 

109 


moment. “You mean it’s a matter of 
course ?” 

“If I were English,” said Bessie, “it 
would certainly seem to me a matter of 
course that every one should be a good 
patriot.” 

“ Oh dear, yes, patriotism is every- 
thing,” said Lord Lambeth, not quite 
following, but very contented. “ Now, 
what are you going to do here ?” 

“ On Thursday I am going to the 
Tower.” 

“ The Tower ?” 

“The Tower of London. Did you 
never hear of it?” 

“ Oh yes, I have been there,” said Lord 
Lambeth. “ I was taken there by my 
governess when I was six years old. It’s 
a rum idea, your going there.” 

“ Do give me a few more rum ideas,” 
said Bessie. “ I want to see everything 
of that sort. I am going to Hampton 
Court, and to Windsor, and to the Dul- 
wich Gallery.” 

Lord Lambeth seemed greatly amused. 
“ I wonder you don’t go to the Bosher- 
ville Gardens.” 

“ Are they interesting ?” asked Bessie. 

“ Oh, wonderful !” 

no 


“ Are they very old ? That’s all I care 
for,” said Bessie. 

“ They are tremendously old ; they are 
falling to ruins.” 

‘‘ I think there is nothing so charming 
as an old ruinous garden,” said the young 
girl. “We must certainly go there.” 

Lord Lambeth broke out into merri- 
ment. “ I say, W oodley,” he cried, “ here’s 
Miss Alden wants to go to the Rosher- 
ville Gardens !” 

Willie Woodley looked a little blank; 
he was caught in the fact of ignorance of 
an apparently conspicuous feature of Lon- 
don life. But in a moment he turned it 
off. “Very well,” he said, “ I’ll write 
for a permit.” 

Lord Lambeth’s exhilaration increased. 
“ Gad, I believe you Americans would go 
anywhere !” he cried. 

“We wish to go to Parliament,” said 
Bessie. “ That’s one of the first things.” 

“ Oh, it would bore you to death !” 
cried the young man. 

“We wish to hear you speak.” 

“I never speak — except to young la- 
dies,” said Lord Lambeth, smiling. 

Bessie Alden looked at him a while, 
smiling, too, in the shadow of her para- 
111 


sol. “You are very strange,” she mur- 
iTiured. “I don’t think I approve of 
you.” 

“ Ah, now, don’t be severe. Miss Al- 
den,” said Lord Larnbetli, smiling still 
more. “ Please don’t be severe. I want 
you to like me — awfully.” 

“ To like you awfully? You must not 
laugh at me, then, when I make mistakes. 
I consider it my right, as a free-born 
American, to make as many mistakes as 
I choose.” 

“Upon my word I didn’t laugh at 
you,” said Lord Larnbetli. 

“And not only that,” Bessie went on; 
“ but I hold that all my mistakes shall be 
set down to my credit. You must think 
the better of me for them.” 

“ I can’t think better of you than I do,” 
the young man declared. 

Bessie Alden looked at him a moment. 
“ Yon certainly speak very well to young 
ladies. But why don’t you address the 
House? — isn’t that what they call it?” 

Because I have nothing to say,” said 
Lord Lambeth. 

“ Haven’t you a great position ?” asked 
Bessie Alden. 

He looked a moment at the back of his 
112 


r 



’ glove. “ I’ll set that down,” he said, “ as 
one of your mistakes — to your credit.” 
And as if he disliked talking about his 
position, he changed the subject. “ I 
wish you would let me go witli you to 
the Tower, and to Hampton Court, and 
to all those other places.” 

‘‘ We shall be most happy,” said Bessie. 

“And of course I shall be delighted to 
show you the House of Lords — some day 
that suits you. There are a lot of things 
I want to do for you. I want to make 
you have a good time. And I should 
like very much to present some of my 
' friends to you, if it wouldn’t bore you. 

: Then it would be awfully kind of you to 

i come down to Branches.” 

I “We are much obliged to you. Lord 
I Lambeth,” said Bessie, 

i “ What is Branches ?” 

f “It’s a house in the 

I country. I think you 

I might like it.” 

! Willie Woodley and 

Mrs. Westgate at this 


moment were sitting in silence, and tlie 
young man’s ear caught these last words 
of Lord Lambeth’s. “ He’s inviting Miss 
Bessie to one of his castles,” he murmured 
to his companion. 

Mrs. Westgate, foreseeing what she 
mentally called “ complications,” imme- 
diately got up ; and the two ladies, tak- 
ing leave of Lord Lambeth, returned, 
under Mr. Woodley’s conduct, to Jones’s 
Hotel. 

Lord Lambeth came to see them on the 
morrow, bringing Percy Beaumont with 
him — the latter having instantly declared 
his intention of neglecting none of the 
usual otSces of civility. This declaration, 
however, when his kinsman informed 
him of the advent of their American 
friends, had been preceded by another 
remark. 

“ Here they are, then, and you are in 
for it.” 

“What am I in for?” demanded Lord 
Lambeth. 

“ I will let your mother give it a name. 
With all respect to whom,” added Percy 
Beaumont, “ I must decline on this occa- 
sion to do any more police duty. Her 
Grace must look after you herself.” 

114 


“ I will give her a chance,’’ said her 
Grace’s son, a trifle grimly. “ I shall 
make her go and see them.” 

“ She won’t do it, my boy.” 

“We’ll see if she doesn’t,” said Lord 
Lambeth. 

But if Percy Beaumont took a sombre 
view of the arrival of the two ladies at 
Jones’s Hotel, he was snfticiently a man 
of the world to offer them a smiling 
countenance. He fell into animated con- 
versation — conversation, at least, that was 
animated on her side — with Mrs. West- 
gate, while his companion made himself 
agreeable to the young lady. Mrs. West- 
gate began confessing and protesting, de- 
claring and expounding. 

“ 1 must say London is a great deal 
brighter and prettier just now than when 
1 was here last — in the month of Novem- 
ber. There is evidently a great deal going 
on, and you seem to have a good many 
flowers. I have no doubt it is very 
charming for all you people, and that you 
amuse yourselves immensely. It is very 
good of you to let Bessie and me come 
and sit and look at you. I suppose you 
think I am satirical, but I must confess 
that that’s the feeling I have in London.”' 

115 


“ I am afraid I don’t quite understand 
to what feeling you allude,” said Percy 
Beaumont. 

‘‘ The feeling that it’s all very well for 
you English people. Everything is beau- 
tifully arranged for you.” 

“ It seems to me it is very well for 
some Americans, sometimes,” rejoined 
Beaumont. 

“ For some of them, yes — if they like 
to be patronized. But I must say I don’t 
like to be patronized. I may be very 
eccentric and undisciplined and outra- 
geous, but I confess I never was fond of 
patronage. I like to associate with peo- 
ple on the same terms as I do in my own 
country ; that’s a peculiar taste that I have. 
But here people seem to expect something 
else — Heaven knows what ! lam afraid 
you will think I am very ungrateful, for 
I certainly have received a great deal of 
attention. The last time I was here, a 
lady sent me a message that I was at 
liberty to come and see her.” 

Dear me ! I hope you didn’t go,” ob- 
served Percy Beaumont. 

“ You are deliciously na’ive, I must say 
that for you!” Mrs. Westgate exclaimed. 

‘‘ It must be a great advantage to you 
116 


here in London. I suppose if I myself 
had a little more naivete, I should enjoy it 
more. I should be content to sit on a chair 
in the park, and see the people pass, and be 
told that this is the Duchess of Suffolk, and 
that is the Lord Chamberlain, and that I 
must be thankful for the privilege of be- 
holding them. I dare say it is very wicked 
and critical of me to ask for anything else. 
But I was always critical, and I freely 
confess to the sin of being fastidious. I 
am told there is some remarkably supe- 
rior second-rate society provided here for 
strangers. Merci / I don’t want any su- 
perior second-rate society. I want the 
society that I have been accustomed to.” 

I hope you don’t call Lambeth and 
me second-rate,” Beaumont interposed. 

“ Oh, I am accustomed to you,” said 
Mrs. AYestgate. “Do you know that you 
English sometimes make the most won- 
derful speeches? The first time I came 
to London I went out to dine — as I told 
you, I have received a great deal of at- 
tention. After dinner, in the drawing- 
room I had some conversation with an 
old lady; I assure you I had. I forget 
what we talked about, but she presently 
said, in allusion to something we were 

117 


discussing, ‘ Oh, you know, tlie aristoc- 
racy do so-and-so ; but in one’s own class 
of life it is very different.’ In one’s own 
class of life ! What is a poor unprotected 
American woman to do in a country 
where she is liable to have tljat sort of 
thing said to lier?” 

“ You seem to get hold of some very 
queer old ladies; I compliment you on 
your acquaintance !” Percy Beaumont ex- 
claimed. “ If you are trying to bring 
me to admit that London is an odious 
place, you’ll not succeed. I’m extremely 
fond of it, and I think it the jolliest 
place in the world.” 

Pour vous autres. I never said the 



contrary,” Mrs. Westgate retorted. I 
make use of this expression, because both 
interlocutors had begun to raise their 
voices. Percy Beaumont naturally did 
not like to hear his country abused, and 
Mrs. Westgate, no less naturally, did not 
like a stubborn debater. 

“ Hallo !” said Lord Lambeth ; “ what 
are they up to now And he came 
away from the window, wdiere he had 
been standing with Bessie Alden. 

“ I quite agree with a very clever 
countrywoman of mine,” Mrs. Westgate 
continued, with charming ardor, though 
with imperfect relevancy. She smiled at 
the two gentlemen for a moment with 
terrible brightness, as if to toss at their 
feet — upon their native heath — the gaunt- 
let of defiance. “ For me there are only 
two social positions worth speaking of — 
that of an American lady, and that of the 
Emperor of Russia.” 

“ And what do you do with the Ameri- 
can gentlemen ?” asked Lord Lambeth. 

She leaves them in America !” said 
Percy Beaumont. 

On the departure of their visitors, 
Bessie Alden told her sister that Lord 
Lambeth would come the next day, to go 

119 


•with them to the Tower, and that he had 
kindly offered to bring his ‘Hrap,” and 
drive them thither. 

Mrs. Westgate listened in silence to 
this communication, and for some time 
afterwards she said nothing. But at last : 
“ If you had not requested me the oth- 
er day not to mention it,” she began, 
“ there is something I should venture 
to ask you.” Bessie frowned a little ; 
her dark blue eyes were more dark than 
blue. But her sister went on. “ As it 
is, I will take the risk. You are not in 
love with Lord Lambeth: I believe it, 
perfectly. Yery good. But is there, by 
chance, any danger of your becoming so ? 
It’s a very simple question ; don’t take 
offence. I have a particular reason,” said 
Mrs. Westgate, ‘‘ for wanting to know.” 

Bessie Alden for some moments said 
nothing ; she only looked displeased. 
“ 'No ; there is no danger,” she answered 
at last, curtly 

“ Then I should like to frighten them,” 
declared Mrs. AVestgate, clasping her 
jewelled hands. 

“ To frighten whom ?” 

“ All these people ; Lord Lambeth’s 
family and friends.” 


120 


“ How should you frighten them 
asked the young girl. 

‘‘It wouldn’t be I — it would be you. 
It would frighten them to think that you 
should absorb his lordship’s young affec- 
tions.” 

Bessie Alden, with her clear eyes still 
overshadowed by her dark brows, con- 
tinued to interrogate. “ Why should that 
frighten them?” 

Mrs. Westgate poised her answer with 
a smile before delivering it. “ Because 
they think you are not good enough. 
You are a charming girl, beautiful and 
amiable, intelligent and clever, and as 
hien-elevee as it is possible to be ; but 
you are not a fit match for Lord Lam- 
beth.” 

Bessie Alden was decidedly disgusted. 
“Where do you get such extraordinary 
ideas ?” she asked. “You have said some 
such strange things lately. My dear 
Kitty, where do you collect them ?” 

Kitty was evidently enamoured of her 
idea. “ Yes, it would put them on pins 
and needles, and it wouldn’t hurt you. 
Mr. Beaumont is already most uneasy ; I 
could soon see that.” 

The young girl meditated a moment- 
121 



“ Do you mean that they spy upon him — 
that they interfere witli him?” 

“ I don’t know what power they have 
to interfere, but I know that a British 
mamma may worry her son’s life out.” 

It has been intimated that, as regards 
certain disagreeable things, Bessie Alden 
had a fund of scepticism. She abstained 
on the present occasion from expressing 
disbelief, for she wished not to irritate 
her sister. But she said to herself that 
Kitty had been misinformed — that this 
was a traveller’s tale. Though she was a 
girl of a lively imagination, there could in 
the nature of things be, to her sense, no 
reality in the idea of her belonging to a 
vulgar category. What she said aloud 
was, “ I must say that in that case I am 
very sorry for Lord Lambeth.” 

Mrs. Westgate, more and more exhila- 
rated by her scheme, was smiling at her 
again. “ If I could only believe it was 
safe!” she exclaimed. “When you be- 
gin to pity him, I, on my side, am 
afraid.” 

“ Afraid of what ?” 

“ Of your pitying him too much.” 

Bessie Alden turned away impatiently ; 
but at the end of a minute she turned 
122 


back. “ What if I should pity him too 
much?” she asked. 

Mrs. Westgate hereupon turned away, 
but after a moment’s reflection she also 
faced her sister again. “It would come, 
after all, to the same thing,” she said. 

Lord Lambeth came the next day with 
his trap, and the two ladies, attended by 
Willie Woodley, placed themselves under 
his guidance, and were conveyed east- 
ward, through some of the dusker por- 
tions of the metropolis, to the great tur- 
reted donjon which overlooks the London 
shipping. They all descended from their 
vehicle and entered the famous enclosure; 
and they secured the services of a vener- 
able beef- eater, who, though there were 
many other claimants for legendary in- 
formation, made a fine exclusive party of 
them, and marched them through courts 
and corridors, through armories and pris- 
ons. He delivered his usual peripatetic 
discourse, and they stopped and stared, 
and peeped and stooped, according to the 
official admonitions. Bessie Alden asked 
the old man in the crimson doublet a 
great many questions ; she thought it a 
most fascinating place. Lord Lambeth 
was in high good -humor; he was con- 


123 


stantly laughing; he enjoyed what he 
would have called the lark. W illie W ood- 
ley kept looking at the ceilings and tap- 
ping the walls with the knuckle of a pearl- 
gray glove; and Mrs. Westgate, asking 
at frequent intervals to be allowed to sit 
down and wait till they came back, was 
as frequently informed that they would 
never come back. To a great many of 
Bessie’s questions — chiefly on collateral 
points of English history — the ancient 
warder was naturally unable to reply ; 
whereupon she always appealed to Lord 
Lambeth. But his lordship was very 
ignorant. He declared that he knew 
nothing about that sort of thing, and he 
seemed greatly diverted at being treated 
as an authority. 

“ You can’t expect every one to know 
as much as you,” he said. 

“ I should expect you to know a great 
deal more,” declared Bessie Alden. 

‘‘Women always know more than men 
about names and dates, and that sort of 
thing,” Lord Lambeth rejoined. “ There 
was Lady Jane Grey we have just been 
hearing about, who went in for Latin 
and Greek, and all the learning of her 
age.” 


124 



“ You have no right to be ignorant, at 
all events,” said Bessie. 

‘‘ Why haven’t I as good a right as any 
one else ?” 

‘‘Because you have lived in the midst 
of all these things.” 

“ AVhat things do you mean ? Axes, 
and blocks, and thumb-screws?” 

“ All these historical things. You be- 
long to a historical family.” 

“Bessie is really too historical,” said 
Mrs. AVestgate, catching a word of this 
dialogue. 

“ Yes, you are too historical,” said Lord 
Lambeth, laughing, but thankful for a 
formula. “ Upon my honor, you are too 
historical !” 

He went with the ladies a couple of days 
later to Hampton Court, AUillie Woodley 

. 125 


being also of the party. The afternoon 
was charming, the famous horse-chest- 
nuts were in blossom, and Lord Lambeth, 
who quite entered into the spirit of the 
cockney excursionist, declared that it w’as 
a jolly old place. Bessie Alden was in 
ecstasies; she went about murmuring and 
exclaiming. 

“ It’s too lovely,” said the young girl ; 
‘‘it’s too enchanting; it’s too exactly 
what it ought to be !” 

At Hampton Court the little flocks of 
visitors are not provided with an oflicial 
bell-wether, but are left to browse at dis- 
cretion upon the local antiquities. It 
happened in this manner that, in default 
of another informant, Bessie Alden, who 
on doubtful questions was able to suggest 
a great many alternatives, found herself 
again applying for intellectual assistance 
to Lord Lambeth. But he again assured 
her that he was utterly helpless in such 
matters — that his education had been 
sadly neglected. 

“ And I am sorry it makes you un- 
happy,” he added, in a moment. 

“You are very disappointing. Lord 
Lambeth,” she said. 

“ Ah, now, don’t say that !” he cried. 

126 


“ That’s the worst thing you could possi- 
bly say.” 

“Xo,” she rejoined, ‘‘it is not so bad 
as to say that I had expected nothing of 
you.” 

“ I don’t know. Give me a notion of 
the sort of thing you expected.” 

“Well,” said Bessie Alden, “that you 
would be more what 1 should like to be — 
what I should try to be — in your place.” 

“ Ah, my place !” exclaimed Lord Lam- 
beth. “You are always talking about 
my place !” 

The young girl looked at him ; he 
thought she colored a little ; and for a 
moment she made no rejoinder. 

“ Does it strike 3 ^ou that I am always 
talking about your place?” she asked. 

“ I am sure you do it a great honor,” 
he said, fearing he had been uncivil. 

“ I have often thought about it,” she 
went on, after a moment. “I have often 
thought about your being a hereditary 
legislator. A hereditary legislator ought 
to know a great many things.” 

“ Yot if he doesn’t legislate.” 

“But you do legislate ; it’s absurd your 
saying you don’t. You are very much 
looked up to here — T am assured of that.” 

127 


^‘I don’t know that I ever noticed 
it.” 

“It is because you are used to it, then. 
You ought to fill the place.” 

“ How do you mean to fill it ?” asked 
Lord Lambeth. 

“ You ought to be very clever and 
brilliant, and to know almost everything.” 

Lord Lambeth looked at her a mo- 
ment. “Shall I tell you something?” he 
asked. “A young man in my position, 
as you call it — ” 

“ I didn’t invent the term,” interposed 
Bessie Alden. “ I have seen it in a great 
many books.” 

“Hang it ! you are always at your 
books. A fellow in my position, then, 
does very well whatever he does. That’s 
about what I mean to say.” 

“ Well, if your own people are content 
with you,” said Bessie Alden, laughing, 
“ it is not for me to complain. But I 
shall always think that, properly, you 
should have been a great mind — a great 
character.” 

“ Ah, that’s very theoretic,” Lord Lam- 
beth declared. “Depend upon it, that’s 
a Yankee prejudice.” 

“ Happy the country,” said Bessie Al- 
128 


den, “ where even people’s prejudices are 
so elevated !” 

“Well, after all,” observed Lord Lam- 
beth, “ I don’t know that I am such a 
fool as you are trying to make me out.” 

“ I said nothing so rude as that ; but I 
must repeat that you are disappointing.” 

“ My dear Miss Alden,” exclaimed the 
young man, “ I am the best fellow in the 
world !” 


“ Ah, if it were not for that !” said 
Bessie Alden, with a smile. 

Mrs. Westgate had a good many more 
friends in London than she pretended, 
and before long she had renewed ac- 
quaintance with most of them. Their 
hospitality was extreme, so that, one 
thing leading to another, she began, as 
the phrase is, to go out. Bessie Alden, 
in this way, saw something of what she 
found it a great satisfaction to call to 


herself English society. She went to 
balls and danced, she went to dinners 
and talked, she went to concerts and lis- 
tened (at concerts Bessie always listened), 
she went to exhibitions and wondered. 
Her enjoyment was keen and her curi- 
osity insatiable, and, grateful in general 
for all her opportunities, she especially 



prized the privilege of meeting certain 
celebrated persons — authors and artists, 
philosophers and statesmen — of whose 
renown she had been a humble and dis- 
tant beholder, and who now, as a part of 
the habitual furniture of London draw- 
ing-rooms, struck her as stars fallen from 
the firmament and become palpable — re- 
vealing also sometimes, on contact, quali- 
ties not to have been predicted of side- 
real bodies. 

Bessie, who knew so many of her con- 
temporaries by reputation, had a good 
many personal disappointments; but, on 
the other hand, she had innumerable satis- 
factions and enthusiasms, and she com- 
municated the emotions of either class to 
a dear friend of her own sex in Boston, 
with whom she was in voluminous corre- 
spondence. Some of her reflections, in- 
deed, she attempted to impart to Lord 
Lambeth, who came almost every day to 
Jones’s Hotel, and whom Mrs. Westgate 
admitted to be really devoted. Captain 
Littledale, it appeared, had gone to India; 
and of several others of Mrs. Westgate’s 
ex -pensioners — gentlemen who, as she 
said, had made, in New York, a club- 
house of her drawing-room — no tidings 

130 


were to be obtained ; but Lord Lambeth 
was certainly attentive enough to make 
up for the accidental absences, tlie short 
memories, all the other irregularities, of 
every one else. He drove them in the 
park, he took them to visit private collec- 
tions of pictures, and, having a house of 
his own, invited them to dinner. Mrs. 
Westgate, following the fashion of many 
of her compatriots, caused herself and 
her sister to be presented at the English 
court by her diplomatic representative — 
for it was in this manner that she alluded 
to the American minister to England, in- 
quiring what on earth he was put there 
for, if not to make the proper arrange- 
ments for one’s going to a Drawing-room. 

Lord Lambeth declared that he hated 
Drawing-rooms, but he participated in 
the ceremony on the day on which the 
two ladies at Jones’s Hotel repaired to 
Buckingham Palace in a remarkable coach 
which his lordship had sent to fetch 
them. He had a gorgeous uniform, and 
Bessie Alden was particularly struck with 
his appearance, especially when on her ask- 
ing him — rather foolishly, as she felt — if 
he were a loyal subject, he replied that 
he was a loyal subject to her. This dec- 

131 


laration was emphasized by his dancing 
with her at a royal ball to which the two 
ladies afterwards went, and was not im- 
paired by the fact that she thought he 
danced very ill. He seemed to her won- 
derfully kind ; she asked herself, with 
growing vivacity, why he should be so 
kind. It was his disposition — that seemed 
the natural answer. She had told her 
sister that she liked him very much, and 
now that she liked him more she won- 
dered why. She liked him for his dispo- 
sition ; to this question as well that seemed 
the natural answer. When once the im- 
pressions of London life began to crowd 
thickly upon her she completely forgot 
her sister’s warning about the cynicism 
of public opinion. It had given her 
great pain at the moment, but there was 
no particular reason why she should re- 
member it ; it corresponded too little 
with any sensible reality ; and it was dis- 
agreeable to Bessie to remember disagree- 
able , things. So she was not haunted 
with the sense of a vulgar imputation. 
She was not in love with Lord Lambeth 
—she assured herself of that. 

It wdll immediately be observed that 
when such assurances become necessary 

132 


the state of a young lady’s 
aifections is already ambigu- 
ous ; and, indeed, Bessie Al- 
den made no attempt to dissim- 
ulate — to herself, of course — a cer- 
tain tenderness that she felt for the 
young nobleman. She said to her- 
self that she liked the type to which 
he belonged — the simple, candid, 
manly, healthy English tempera- 
ment. She spoke to herself of him 
as women speak of young men they 
like — alluded to his bravery (which 
she had never in the least seen test- 
ed), to his honesty and gentlemanli- 
ness, and w^as not silent upon the 
subject of his good looks. She was 
perfectly conscious, moreover, that 
she liked to think of his more ad- 
ventitious merits ; that her imagi- 
nation was excited and gratified 
by the sight of a handsome young 
man endowed with such large oppor- 
tunities — opportunities she hardly 


knew for what, but, as she supposed, for 
doing great things — for setting an exam- 
ple, for exerting an influence, for confer- 
ring happiness, for encouraging the arts. 
She had a kind of ideal of conduct for a 
young man who should find himself in 
this magnificent position, and she tried to 
adapt it to Lord Lambeth’s deportment, 
as you might attempt to fit a silhouette in 
cut paper upon a shadow projected upon 
a wall. 

But Bessie Alden’s silhouette refused 
to coincide with his lordship’s image, and 
this want of harmony sometimes vexed 
her more than she thought reasonable. 
When he was absent it was, of course, 
less striking; then he seemed to her a 
sufiiciently graceful combination of high 
responsibilities and amiable qualities. But 
when he sat there within sight, laughing 
and talking with his customary good- 
humor and simplicity, she measured it 
more accurately, and she felt acutely that 
if Lord Lambeth’s position was heroic, 
there was but little of the hero in the 
young man himself. Then her imagi- 
nation wandered away from him — very 
far away; for it was an incontestable fact 
that at such moments he seemed distinct- 

134 


Ij dull. I am afraid that while Bessie’s 
imagination was thus invidiously roam- 
ing, she cannot have been herself a very 
lively companion ; but it may well have 
been that these occasional fits of indiffer- 
ence seemed to Lord Lambeth a part of 
the young girl’s personal charm. It had 
been a part of this charm from the first 
that he felt that she judged him and 
measured him more freely and irresponsi- 
bly — more at her ease and her leisure, as 
it were — than several young ladies with 
whom he had been, on the whole, about 
as intimate. To feel this, and yet to feel 
that she also liked him, was very agree- 
able to Lord Lambeth. He fancied he 
had compassed that gratification so desir- 
able to young men of title and fortune — 
being liked for himself. It is true that 
a cynical counsellor might have whispered 
to him, ‘‘Liked for yourself? Yes; but 
not so very much !” He had, at any 
rate, the constant hope of being liked 
more. 

It may seem, perhaps, a trifle singular 
— but it is nevertheless true — that Bessie 
Alden, when he struck her as dull, de- 
voted some time, on grounds of con- 
science, to trying to like him more. I 

135 


say on grounds of conscience, because she 
felt that lie had been extremely “ nice ” 
to her sister, and because she reflected 
that it was no more tlian fair that she 
should think as well of him as he thought 
of her. This effort was possibly some- 
times not so successful as it miglit have 
been, for the result of it was occasionally 
a vague irritation, which expressed itself 
in hostile criticism of several British in- 
stitutions. Bessie Alden went to some 
entertainments at which she met Lord 
Lambeth; but she went to others at which 
his lordship was neither actually nor po- 
tentially present ; and it was chiefly on 
these latter occasions that she encoun- 
tered those literary and artistic celebri- 
ties of whom mention has been made. 
After a while she reduced the matter to a 
principle. If Lord Lambeth should ap- 
pear anywhere, it was a symbol that there 
would be no poets and philosophers ; and 
in consequence — for it was almost a strict 
consequence — she used to enumerate to 
the young man these objects of her admi- 
ration. 

“You seem to be awfully fond of those 
sort of people,” said Lord Lambeth one 
day, as if the idea had just occurred to him. 

136 


“They are the people in England I 
am most curious to see,” Bessie Alden 
replied. 

“I suppose that’s because you have 
read so much,” said Lord Lambeth, gal- 
lantly. 

“I have not read so much. It is be- 
cause we think so much of them at home.” 

“Oh, I see,” observed the young noble- 
man. “ In Boston.” 

“Not only in Boston ; everywhere,” s-aid 
Bessie. “ We hold them in great honor ; 
they go to the best dinner-parties.” 

“ I dare say you are right. I can’t say 
I know many of them.” 

“ It’s a pity you don’t,” Bessie Alden 
declared. “It would do you good.” 

“ I dare say it would,” said Lord Lam- 
beth, very humbly. “ But I must say I 
don’t like the looks of some of them.” 

“ Neither do I — of some of them. But 
there are all kinds, and many of them 
are charming.” 

“ I have talked with two or three of 
them,” the young man went on, “ and I 
thought they had a kind of fawning 
manner.” 

“ Why should they fawn ?” Bessie Al- 
den demanded. 


137 


“ I’m sure I don’t know. Why, in- 
deed ?” 

“Perhaps you only thought so,” said 
Bessie. 

“Well, of course,” rejoined her com- 
panion, “ that’s a kind of thing that can’t 
be proved.” 

“In America they don’t fawn,” said 
Bessie. 

“Ah, well, then, they must be better 
company.” 

Bessie was silent a moment. “ That is 
one of the things I don’t like about Eng- 
land,” she said — “your keeping the dis- 
tinguished people apart.” 

“ How do you mean apart ?” 

“ Why, letting them come only to cer- 
tain places. You never see them.” 

Lord Lambeth looked at her a moment. 
“What people do you mean?” 

“ The eminent people — the authors 
and artists — the clever people.” 

“ Oh, there are other eminent people 
besides those,” said Lord Lambeth. 

“Well, you certainly keep them apart,” 
repeated the young girl. 

“And there are other clever people,” 
added Lord Lambeth, simply. 

Bessie Alden looked at him, and she 

138 



gave a light laugh. “Not many,” she 
said. 

On another occasion — just after a din- 
ner-party — she told him that there was 
something else in England she did not 
like. 

“Oh, I say!” he cried, “haven’t you 
abused us enough ?” 

“I have never abused you at all,” said 
Bessie; “but I don’t like your prece- 
dence P 

“ It isn’t my precedence !” Lord Lam- 
beth declared, laughing. 

“Yes, it is yours — just exactly yours; 
and I think it’s odious,” said Bessie. 

“ I never saw such a young lady for 

139 


discussing things ! Has some one had 
the impudence to go before you V' asked 
his lordship. 

‘‘It is not the going before me tliat I 
object to,” said Bessie ; “ it is their think- 
ing that they have a right to do it — a 
right that I recognizer 

“ I never saw such a young lady as you 
are for not ‘ recognizing.’ I have no 
doubt the thing is beastly, but it saves 
a lot of trouble.” 

“ It makes a lot of trouble. It’s horrid,” 
said Bessie. 

“But how would you have the first 
people go ?” asked Lord Lambeth. “ They 
can’t go last.” 

“Whom do you mean by the first 
people ?” 

“Ah, if you mean to question first 
principles!” said Lord Lambeth. 

“ If those are your first principles, no 
wonder some of your arrangements are 
horrid,” observed Bessie Alden, with a 
very pretty ferocity. “I am a young 
girl, so of course I go last ; but imagine 
what Kitty must feel on being informed 
that she is not at liberty to budge until 
certain other ladies have passed out.” 

“ Oh, I say she is not ‘ informed 1’ ” 

140 


cried Lord Lambeth. “No one would 
do such a thing as that.” 

“ She is made to feel it,” the young 
girl insisted — “ as if they were afraid she 
would make a rush for the door. No; 
you have a lovely country,” said Bessie 
Alden, “ but your precedence is horrid.” 

“ I certainly shouldn’t think your sister 
would like it,” rejoined Lord Lambeth, 
with even exaggerated gravity. But 
Bessie Alden could induce him to enter 
no formal protest against this repulsive 
custom, which he seemed to think an 
extreme convenience. 

Percy Beaumont all this time had been 
a very much less frequent visitor at 
Jones’s Hotel than his noble kinsman ; 
he had, in fact, called but twice upon the 
two American ladies. Lord Lambeth, 
who often saw him, reproaclied him with 
his neglect, and declared that, although 
Mrs. Westgate had said nothing about it, 
he was sure that she was secretly wounded 
by it. “ She suffers too much to speak,” 
said Lord Lambeth. 

“ That’s all gammon,” said Percy Beau- 
mont ; “there’s a limit to what people 
can suffer !” And, though sending no 
apologies to Jones’s Hotel, he undertook, 

141 


in a manner, to explain his absence. “You 
are always there,” he said, “and that’s 
reason enough for iny not going.” 

“I don’t see why. There is enough 
for both of us.” 

“ I don’t care to be a witness of your 
— your reckless passion,” said Percy Beau- 
mont. 

Lord Lambeth looked at him with a 
cold eye, and for a moment said nothing. 
“ It’s not so obvious as you might sup- 
pose,” he rejoined, dryly, “considering 
what a demonstrative beggar I am.” 

“ I don’t want to know anything about 
it — nothing whatever,” said Beaumont. 

‘Your mother asks me every time she 
sees me whether I believe you are really 
lost — and Lady Pimlico does the same. 
I prefer to be able to answer that I know 
nothing about it — that I never go there. 
I stay away for consistency’s sake. As I 
said the other day, they must look after 
you themselves.” 

“ You are devilish considerate,” said 
Lord Lambeth. “ They never -question 
me.” 

“ They are afraid of you. They are 
afraid of irritating you and making you 
worse. So they go to work very cau- 

142 


tiously, and, somewhere or other, they 
get their information. They know a 
great deal about you. They know that 
you have been with those ladies to the 
dome of St. Paul’s and — where w^as the 
other place ? — to the Thames Tunnel.” 

“ If all their knowledge is as accurate 
as that, it must be very valuable,” said 
Lord Lambeth. 

“Well, at any rate, they know that you 
have been visiting the ‘ sights of the me- 
tropolis.’ They think — very naturally, 
as it seems to me — that when you take to 
visiting the sights of the metropolis with 
a little American girl, there is serious 
cause for alarm.” Lord Lambeth re- 
sponded to this intimation by scornful 
laughter, and his companion continued, 
after a pause : “ I said just now I didn’t 
want to know anything about the affair; 
but I will confess that I am curious to 
learn whether you propose to marry Miss 
Bessie Alden.” 

On this point Lord Lambeth gave his 
interlocutor no immediate satisfaction ; 
he was musing, with a frown. “ By 
Jove,” he said, “ they go rather too far ! 
They shall find me dangerous — I promise 
them.” 


143 


Percy Beaumont began to laugh. “ You 
don’t redeem your promises. You said 
the other day you would make your 
mother call.” 

Lord Lambeth continued to meditate. 

I asked her to call,” he said, simply. 

‘‘ And she declined ?” 

“ Yes ; but she shall do it yet.” 

“Upon my word,” said Percy Beau- 
mont, “ if she gets much more frightened 
I believe she will.” Lord Lambeth looked 
at him, and he went on. “ She will go 
to the girl herself.” 

“ How do you mean she will go to 
her ?” 

“ She will beg her off, or she will bribe 
her. She will take strong measures.” 

Lord Lambeth turned away in silence, 
and his companion watched him take 
twenty steps and then slowly return. “ I 
have invited Mrs. Westgate and Miss 
Alden to Branches,” he said, “ and this 
evening I shall name a day.” 

“And shall you invite your mother 
and your sisters to meet them ?” 

“ Explicitly !” 

“That will set the duchess off,” said 
Percy Beaumont. “I suspect she will 
come.” 


144 


“ She may do as she pleases.” 

Beaumont looked at Lord Lambeth. 
“You do really propose to marry the 
little sister, then ?” 

“ I like the way you talk about it 1” 
cried the young man. “ She won’t gob- 
ble me down ; don’t be afraid.” 

“ She won’t leave you on your knees,” 
said Percy Beaumont. “ Wliat is the in- 
ducement ?” 

“You talk about proposing : wait till I 
have proposed,” Lord Lambeth went on. 

“ That’s right, my dear fellow ; think 
about it,” said Percy Beaumont. 

“ She’s a charming girl,” pursued his 
lordship. 

“ Of course she’s a charming girl. I 
don’t know a girl more charming, intrin- 
sically. But there are other charming 
girls nearer home.” 

“ I like her spirit,” observed Lord Lam- 
beth, almost as if he were trying to tor- 
ment his cousin. 

“ What’s the peculiarity of her spirit ?” 

“ She’s not afraid, and she says things 
out, and she thinks herself as good as 
any one. She is the only girl I have 
ever seen that was not dying to marry 
me.” 



145 


“How do you know that, if you haven’t 
asked her?” 

“ I don’t know how ; but 1 know it.” 

“I arn sure she asked me questions 
enough about your property and your 
titles,” said Beaumont. 

“ She has asked me questions, too ; no 
end of them,” Lord Lambeth admitted. 
“But she asked for information, don’t 
you know.” 

“ Information ? Aye, I’ll warrant she 
wanted it. Depend upon it that she is 
dying to marry you just as much and just 
as little as all the rest of them.” 

“ I shouldn’t like her to refuse me — I 
shouldn’t like that.” 

“ If the thing would be so disagree- 
able, then, both to you an^ to her, in 
Heaven’s name leave it alone,” said Percy 
Beaumont. 

Mrs. Westgate, on her side, had plenty 
to say to her sister about the rarity of 
Mr. Beaumont’s visits and the non-ap- 
pearance of the Duchess of Bayswater. 
She professed, however, to derive more 
satisfaction from this latter circumstance, 
than she could have done from the most 
lavish attentions on the part of this great 
lady. “ It is most marked,” she said — 

146 


‘‘most marked. It is a delicious proof 
that we have made them miserable. The 
day we dined with Lord Lambeth I was 
really sorry for the poor fellow.” It will 
have been gathered that the entertain- 
ment offered Lord Lambeth to his Ameri- 
can friends had not been graced by the 
presence of his anxious mother. He had 
invited several choice spirits to ineet 
'them ; but the ladies of his immediate 
family were to Mrs. Westgate’s sense — 
a sense possibly morbidly acute — con- 
spicuous by their absence. 

“ I don’t vrant to express myself in a 
manner that you dislike,” said Bessie 
Alden ; “ but I don’t know why you 
should have so many theories about Lord 
Lambeth’s poor mother. You know a 
great many young men in New York 
without knowing their mothers.” 

Mrs. Westgate looked at her sister, and 
then turned away. “ My dear Bessie, 
you are superb !” she said. 

“One thing is certain,” the young girl 
continued. “ If I believed I were a cause 
of annoyance — however unwitting — to 
Lord Lambeth’s family, I should insist — ” 
“ Insist upon my leaving England,” 
said Mrs. Westgate. 

147 


“No, not that. I want to go to the 
National Gallery again ; I want to see 
Stratford-on-Avon and Canterbury Ca- 
thedral. But I should insist upon his 
coming to see us no more.” 

“ That would be very modest and very 
pretty of you ; but you wouldn’t do it 
now.” 

“Why do you say ‘now?’” asked Bes- 
sie Alden. “ Have I ceased to be mod- 
est?” 

“ You care for him too much. A 
month ago, when you said you didn’t, I 
believe it was quite true. But at pres- 
ent, my dear child,” said Mrs. Westgate, 
“you wouldn’t find it quite so simple a 
matter never to see Lord Lambeth again. 
I have seen it coming on.” 

“You are mistaken,” said Bessie. “ You 
don’t understand.” 

“My dear child, don’t be perverse,” 
rejoined her sister. 

“ I know him better, certainly, if you 
mean that,” said Bessie, “ And I like 
him very much. But I don’t like him 
enough to make trouble for him with his 
family. However, I don’t believe in 
that.” 

“ I like the way you say ‘ however,’ ” 

148 


Mrs. Westgate exclaimed. “Come; you 
would not marry him 

“ Oil no,” said the young girl. 

Mrs. Westgate for a moment seemed 
vexed. “Why not, pray?” she demanded. 

“ Because I don’t care to,” said Bessie 
Alden. 

The morning after Lord Lambeth had 
had, with Percy Beaumont, that exchange 
of ideas wdiich has just been narrated, 
the ladies at Jones’s Llotel received from 
his lordship a written invitation to pay 
tlieir projected visit to Brandies Castle 
on the following Tuesday. “I think I 
have made up a very pleasant party,” the 
3mung nobleman said. “ Several people 
whom you know, and my motlier and 
sisters, wdio have so long been regrettably 
prevented from making your acquaint- 
ance.” Bessie Alden lost no time in call- 
ing her sister’s attention to the injustice 
she had done the Duchess of Bayswater, 
whose hostility was now proved to be a 
vain illusion. 

“ Wait till 3mu see if she comes,” said 
Mrs. Westgate. “And if she is to meet 
us at her son’s house, the obligation was 
all the greater for her to call upon us.” 

Bessie had not to wait long, and it ap- 

149 



peared tliat Lord Lambeth’s mother now 
accepted Mrs. Westgate’s view of her 
duties. On the morrow, early in the 
afternoon, two cards were brought to the 
apartment of the American ladies — one 
of them bearing the name of the Duchess 
of Bayswater, and the other that of the 
Countess of Pimlico. Mrs. Westgate 
glanced at the clock. “ It is not yet 
four,” she said; “they have come early; 
they wish to see us. We, will receive 
them.” And she gave orders that her 
visitors should be admitted. A few mo- 
ments later they w^ere introduced, and 
there was a solemn exchange of amen- 
ities. The duchess was a large lady, 
with a fine fresh color ; the Countess of 
Pimlico was very pretty and elegant. 

The duchess looked about her as she 
sat down — looked not especially at Mrs. 
Westgate. “I dare say my son has told 
you that I have been wanting to come 
and see you,” she observed. 

“You are very kind,” said Mrs. West- 
gate, vaguely — her conscience not allow- 
ing her to assent to this proposition — 
and, indeed, not permitting her to enun- 
ciate her own with any appreciable em^ 


150 


‘‘ He says you were so kind to him in 
America,” said the duchess. 

“We are very glad,” Mrs. Westgate re- 
plied, “ to have been able to make him a 
little more — a little less — a little more 
comfortable.” 

“ I think that he stayed at your house,” 
remarked the Duchess of Bays water, 
looking at Bessie Alden. 

“A very short time,” said Mrs. West- 
gate. 

“Oh!” said the duchess; and she con- 
tinued to look at Bessie, who was en- 
gaged in conversation with her daughter. 

“Do you like London?” Lady Pim- 
lico had asked of Bessie, after looking at 
her a good deal — at her face and her 
hands, her dress and her hair. 

“Very much indeed,” said Bessie. 

“ Do you like this hotel ?” 

“ It is very comforta- 
ble,” said Bessie. 

“ Do you like stopping 
at hotels?” inquired 
Lady Pimlico, after a 
pause. 

“ I am very fond of 
travelling,” Bessie an- 
swered, “and I suppose 



hotels are a necessary part of it. But they 
are not the part I am fondest of.” 

“ Oh, I hate travelling,” said the Count- 
ess of Pimlico, and transferred her atten- 
tion to Mrs. W estgate. 

“ My son tells me you are going to 
Branches,” the duchess said, presently. 

“ Lord Lambeth has been so good as to 
ask us,” said Mrs. Westgate, who per- 
ceived that her visitor had now begun to 
look at her, and who had her customary 
happy consciousness of a distinguished 
appearance. The only mitigation of her 
felicity on this point was that, having in- 
spected her visitor’s own costume, she 
said to herself, “ She won’t know how 
well I am dressed !” 

He has asked me to go, but I am 
not sure I shall be able,” murmured the 
duchess. 

He had offered us the p — the pros- 
pect of meeting you,” said Mrs. AVestgate. 

“ I hate the country at this season,” 
responded the duchess. 

Mrs. AVestgate gave a little shrug. “ I 
think it is pleasanter than London.” 

But the duchess’s eyes were absent 
again ; she was looking very fixedly at 
Bessie. In a moment she slowly rose, 

352 


walked to a chair that stood empty at the 
young girl’s right hand, and silently 
seated herself. As she was a majestic, 
voluminous woman, this little transaction 
had, inevitably, an air of somewhat im- 
pressive intention. It diffused a certain 
awkwardness, which Lady Pimlico, as a 
sympathetic daughter, perhaps desired to 
rectify in turning to Mrs. Westgate. 

‘‘ 1 dare say you go out a great deal,” 
she observed. 

verj^ little. We are strangers, 
and we didn’t come here for society.” 

“I see,” said Lady Pimlico. It’s 
rather nice in town just now.” 

“It’s charming,” said Mrs. Westgate. 
“ But we only go to see a few people — 
w’horn we like.” 

“ Of course one can’t like every one,” 
said Lady Pimlico. 

“ It depends upon one’s society,” Mrs. 
Westgate rejoined. 

The duchess meanwhile had addressed 
herself to Bessie. “ My son tells me the 
young ladies in America are so clever.” 

“ I am glad they made so good an im- 
pression on him,” said Bessie, smiling. 

The duchess was not smiling; her 
large, fresh face was very tranquil. “ He 

153 



is very susceptible,” she said. “ He 
thinks every one clever, and sometimes 
they are.” 

“ Sometimes,” Bessie assented, smiling 
still. 

The duchess looked at her a little, and 
then went on : “ Lambeth is very sus- 
ceptible, but he is very volatile, too.” 

“ Yolatile?” asked Bessie. 

“ He is very inconstant. It won’t do 
to depend on him.” 

“Ah,” said Bessie, “ I don’t recognize 
that description. We have depended on 
him greatly — my sister and I — and he 
has never disappointed us.” 

“ He will disappoint you yet,” said the 
duchess. 

Bessie gave a little laugh, as if she 
were amused at the duchess’s persistency. 
“I suppose it will depend on what we 
expect of him.” 

“ The less you expect the better,” Lord 
Latnbeth’s mother declared. 

“Well,” said Bessie, “we expect noth- 
ing unreasonable.” 

The duchess for a moment was silent, 
though she appeared to have more to say. 
“ Lambeth says he has seen so much of 
you,” she presently began. 

154 


“ He has been to see us very often ; he 
has been very kind,” said Bessie Alden. 

“I dare say you are used to that. I 
am told there is a great deal of that in 
America.” 

“ A great deal of kindness ?” the young 
girl inquired, smiling. 

‘‘ Is that what you call it ? I know 
you have different expressions.” 

“We certainly don’t always under- 
stand each other,” said Mrs. Westgate, 
the termination of whose interview with 
Lady Pimlico allowed her to give atten- 
tion to their elder visitor. 

“ I am speaking of the young men 
calling so much upon the young ladies,” 
the duchess explained. 

“ But surely in England,” said Mrs. 
Westgate, “the young ladies don’t call 
upon the young men ?” 

“Some of them do — almost!” Lady 
Pimlico declared. “When the young 
men are a jpartiP 

“ Bessie, you must make a note of 
that,” said Mrs. Westgate. “ My sister,” 
she added, “ is a model traveller. She 
writes down all the curious facts she 
hears in a little book she keeps for the 


purpose.” 



The duchess was a little flushed ; she 
looked all about the room, while her 
daughter turned to Bessie. “ Mj brother 
told us you were wonderfully clever,” 
said Lady Pimlico. 

“He should have said my sister,” Bessie 
answered — “ when she says such things 
as that.” 

“ Shall you be long at Branches?” the 
duchess asked, abruptly, of the young girl. 

“ Lord Lambeth has asked us for three 
days,” said Bessie. 

“I shall go,” the duchess declared, 
“ and my daughter, too.” 

“ That will be charming !” Bessie re- 
joined. 

“Delightful!” murmured Mrs. West- 
gate. 

“ I shall expect to see a great deal of 
you,” the duchess continued. “ When I 
go to Branches I monopolize my son’s 
guests.” 

“ They must be most happy,” said Mrs. 
Westgate, very graciously. 

“I want immensely to see it — to see 
the castle,” said Bessie to the duchess. 
“ I have never seen one — in England, at 
least ; and you know we have none in 
America.” 


156 


) 



“Ah, you are fond of castles?” in- 
quired her Grace. 

“ Immensely !” replied the young girl. 
“ It has been the dream of my life to 
live in one.” 

The duchess looked at her a moment, 
as if she hardly knew how to take this 
assurance, which, from her Grace’s point 
of view, was either very artless or very 
audacious. “Well,” she said, rising, “I 
will show you Branches myself.” And 

157 


upon this the two great ladies took their 
departure. 

“ What did they mean by it asked 
Mrs. Westgate, when they were gone. 

“ They meant to be polite,” said Bessie, 
“ because we are going to meet them.” 

‘‘It is too late to be polite,” Mrs. 
Westgate replied, almost grimly. “ They 
meant to overawe us by their fine man- 
ners and their grandeur, and to make you 
Idcher prise P 

^^Ldcher prise f What strange things 
you say !” murmured Bessie Alden. 

“ They meant to snub us, so that we 
shouldn’t dare to go to Branches,” Mrs. 
Westgate continued. 

“ On the contrary,” said Bessie, “ the 
duchess offered to show me the place 
herself.” 

“Yes, you may depend upon it she won’t 
let you out of her sight. She will show 
you the place from morning till night.” 

“You have a theory for everything,” 
said Bessie. * 

“ And you apparently have none for 
anything.” 

“I saw no attempt to ‘overawe’ us,” 
said the young girl. “ Their manners 
were not tine.” 


i68 


“ They were not even good !” Mrs. 
Westgate declared. 

Bessie was silent a while, but in a 
few moments she observed that she had 
a very good theory. “ They came to 
look at me,” she said, as if this had been 
a very ingenious hypothe- 
sis. Mrs. Westgate did 
it justice ; she greet- 
ed it wdth a smile. 



and pronounced it 
most brilliant, while, 
in reality, she felt 
that the young giiTs 
scepticism, or her 
charity, or, as she 
had sometimes called 


it appropriately, her 
idealism, was proof against 


irony. Bessie, however * / 

remained meditative all the 

rest of that day and well on into the 

morrow. 

On the morrow, before lunch, Mrs. 
Westgate had occasion to go out for an 
hour, and left her sister writing a letter. 
When she came back she met Lord Lam- 
beth at the door of the hotel, coming 
away. She thought he looked slightly 


159 


embarrassed ; lie was certainly very grave. 

I am sorry to have missed yon. Won’t 
yon come back ?” she asked. 

‘‘No,” said the young man, “I can’t. 
I have seen yonr sister. I can never 
come back.” Then he looked at her a 
moment, and took her hand. “ Good-bye, 
Mrs. Westgate,” he said. “ Yon have 
been very kind to me.” And with what 
she thought a strange, sad look in his 
handsome yonng face, he tnrned away. 

She went in, and she found Bessie still 
writing her letter — that is, Mrs. Westgate 
perceived she was sitting at the table with 
the pen in her hand and not writing. 
“Lord Lambeth has been here,” said the 
elder lad}’ at last. 

Then Bessie got np and showed her a 
pale, serious face. She bent this face 
upon her sister for some time, confessing 
silently and a little pleading. “ I told 
him,” she said at last, “ that we could not 
go to Branches.” 

Mrs. AVestgate displayed just a spark 
of irritation. “ He might have waited,” 
she said, with a smile, “ till one had seen 
the castle.” Later, an hour afterwards, 
she said, “ Dear Bessie, I wish you might 
have accepted him.” 

160 


“I couldn’t,”, said Bessie, gentlj. 

He is an excellent fellow,” said 
Mrs. Westgate. 

I couldn’t,” Bessie repeated. 

“ If it is only,” her sister added, 
“ because tliose women will think 
that they succeeded — ^that they par- 
alyzed us !” 

Bessie Alden turned away ; but 
presently she added, “ They were 
interesting ; I should have liked to 
see them again.” 

‘‘ So should I !” cried Mrs. West- 
gate, significantly. 

And 1 should have liked to see 
the castle,” said Bessie. “But now 
we must leave England,” she added. 

Her sister looked at her. “ You 
will not wait to go to the National 
Gallery ?” 

“ Not now.” 

“ Nor to Canterbury Cathedral f ’ 

Bessie reflected a moment. “ W e 
can stop there on our way to Paris,” 
she said. 

Lord Lambeth did not tell Percy 
Beaumont that the contingency he 


was not prepared at all to like had oc- 
curred ; but Percy Beauiiiont, on hear- 
ing that the two ladies had left London, 
wondered with some intensity what had 
happened — wondered, that is, until the 
Duchess of Bayswater came a little to his 
assistance. The two ladies went to Paris, 
and Mrs. Westgate beguiled the journey 
to that city by repeating several times: 
“That’s what I regret; they will think 
they petrified us.” But Bessie Alden 
seemed to regret nothing. 






























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